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Annual report of the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station

Research and farming: Annual report of the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station

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North .Carolina Aerici
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The Board ot i r
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Respectfully
Submitted,
J. H. HILTON, Director
RESEARCH AND FARMING
SPRING, 1950
VOLUME VIM
PROGRESS REPORT NO. 4
SEVENTY-SECOND ANNUAL
REPORT
Agricultural Experiment Station,
North Carolina State College of Ag-riculture
and Engineering of the Uni-versity
of North Carolina. Fiscal
Period of July 1, 1948 to June 30,
1949. Progress for December 1, 1948
to Novem'?er 30, 1949; North Caro-lina
Department of Agriculture, Co-operating.
J. H. HILTON
Dean and Director
R. W. CUMMINGS
Associate Director
EDITORIAL
Lane Palmer
PHOTOGRAPHY
Landis Bennett
Ralph Mills
ART WORK
N. S. Youngsteadt
ON THE COVER: Soil augers
ore the tool-in-trade of the soil
surveyor. This auger has just
been used to "pull" a sample
in the Duplin County survey
<See Page 52).—Photo by Ralph
Mills.
In This Issue
Page
LIVESTOCK AND POULTRY
Beef, Sheep and Hogs 3
Chickens and Turkeys 8
Dairying 11
FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
Apples and Peaches . . 16
Small Fruits 18
Vegetables 20
FIELD CROPS
Peanuts 28
Cotton 31
Soybeans 33
Pasture and Forage Crops 34
Small Grains 37
Corn 39
Tobacco 41
CONSERVATION
Forests and Wildlife 48
Soils and Engineering 51
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS 55
Staff, Publications and Financial Report 59
LIVESTOCK AND POULTRY
HeeP, sheep and hogs
"Proved Sires" for the Beef Herd?
The importance of using good
sires in a dairy herd has been so
well established that the "proved
sire" method of breeding has be-come
standard. Less is known about
the improvement of beef cattle
through breeding.
A comparison between two pure-bred
Hereford bulls on grade Here-ford
cows at the Tidewater Experi-ment
Station from 1941 to 1948
contributes to knowledge on this
subject. The aim of W. C. Godley
and H. A. Stewart in making this
study was to determine whether
there was a difference between
these bulls (1) in the weaned
weight of their calves; (2) the rate
of gain of their steers in the feed
lot; (3) the total gain of their
daughters from weaning to the end
of the first pasture season; (4) the
slaughter grade of the steers; and
(5) the weaned weight of the
calves of the daughters.
Bulls used in the tests were N. C.
State Lad H and Bill Domino.
Calves sired by N. C. State Lad H
were 14 pounds heavier than those
by Bill Domino. Steers sired by
these bulls showed no differences
in their rate of gain in the feed
lot. However, the daughters of N. C.
State Lad H gained an average of
19 pounds more during their first
year after weaning than those of
Bill Domino.
The calves of the daughters of
N. C. Lad II were 45 pounds
heavier at weaning than those from
the daughters of Bill Domino. The
steers sired by Bill Domino were
graded an average of one-third of
a slaughter grade above those sired
by Lad. This indicates a slightly
higher value per pound on the hoof.
Stewart and Godley think it is
doubtful that this increase in value
would offset the additional pounds
of product sired by N. C. State
Lad II.
In this study, the bull calves
weaned at an average of 27 pounds
more than the heifers. There was
no relationship between the initial
feed lot weight and rate of gain.
Neither did the rate of gain in feed
lot affect the slaughter grade of
the steers.
•a^ -^^p*
This heifer is from a grade Hereford cow bred artificially to a Romo-
Sinuano bull. The semen was flown to Raleigh from South America.
South American Bull Sires Calf at Station
A heifer calf born June 5, 1949
at the Animal Husbandry farm
near Raleigh marked the beginnmg
of a national effort to breed better
beef cattle through the introduction
of new germ plasm into this coun-try.
The calf's mother was a grade
Hereford, her father a Romo-Sinu-ano
bull located at the National
Livestock Station at Monteria,
Colombia.
The North Carolina Experiment
Station as a participant in the Na-tional
Beef Cattle Breeding Project
was selected to start the program.
H. A. Stewart, E. U. Dillard and
E. H. Hostetler were placed in
charge.
During 1948 six shipments of
semen collected at the Monteria
Station were flown to Raleigh to
inseminate grade Hereford cows.
Because of delays en route only
three of the shipments were alive
on arrival, and two of these were
of doubtful value. The heifer calf
was the first offspring of these in-seminations.
During the spring of 1949, 17
shipments were received at semi-weekly
intervals. Of the 21 cows
showing normal estrus during the
period of insemination, at least 33
per cent settled to their first
service.
Romo-Sinuano cattle are a docile,
polled beef breed being developed
by the Colombian Government.
They are a solid golden red color
with no white markings. Their skin
is black, and the hair is dense and
short. They appear to be adapted
to high temperatures and can with-stand
the many insect pests of
Colombia's northern coastal plain
region.
In another crossbreeding experi-ment,
Brahmam X Hereford calves
averaged 29 pounds heavier than
Africander-Hereford crossbreds and
37 pounds heavier than grade Here-ford
calves at weaning times. The
137 calves involved in this study
were sired by Brahman, Africander
and Hereford bulls and carried to
weaning by grade Hereford cows
grazing on the Hoffman Forest.
The cows' weight rather than
their frequency of calving was re-flected
in the weaned weight of
their calves. These studies were
conducted by T. J. Marlow and
H. A. Stewart.
1949 ANNUAL REPORT
PASTURE STRIPS SERVE AS FOREST FIREBREAKS
One of the pasture strips used as
firelanes in the Plymouth experiment.
The possibility of using strips
of improved pasture as firebreaks
in high-hazard forest types of the
Coastal Plain is being explored at
Tidewater Experiment Station and
the Frying Pan Experimental
Range by W. O. Shepherd, R. H.
Hughes, E. H. Hostetler, E. U. Dil-lard,
and J. L. Rae. To be effective,
such a method of fire control re-quires
a "sod" of pasture plants
which will prevent inflammable
weeds and other native vegetation
from growing. At the same time,
the sod itself must constitute a
fire barrier by being green or close-ly
grazed during the fire season.
Studies were started in the fall
of 1948 to investigate ways of con-structing
such firebreaks and pas-ture
species suitable for this use.
Lanes 18 to 36 feet wide have been
constructed. Some with ditches at
the sides are slightly crowned in
the center while others are flat and
unditched. The Mathis fire plow,
bush-and-bog harrow, Harden ro-tary
brush cutter and a road grader
were the implements used.
Both the bush-and-bog harrow
and the rotary brush cutter were
found to be effective for preparing a
seedbed in moderately brushy land.
Where the brush is very large and
thick, the Mathis fire plow fol-lowed
(several months later) by a
bush-an(i-bog harrow is an ef-fective
procedure.
Ditching and slightly crowning
the lanes (with the fire plow and
the road grader) proved to be high-ly
desirable in flat, poorly drained
sites. The unusually heavy rains
during the summer of 1949 flooded
these sites for long periods and
killed many of the pasture plants
on level lanes. The slight crowning
and ditching not only prevented
drowning out, but when once packed
down, these lanes remained firm
and resistant to trampling damage
even in the wettest weather. In dry
fire weather such lanes would serve
as emergency roads through the
forest.
Four grasses (redtop, alta fes-cue,
Dallis grass, and annual rye
grass) and four legumes (Ladino
clover, big trefoil, subterranean
clover and Kobe lespedeza) were
tested in several hundred plots on
the lanes. They were under con-tinuous
heavy grazing during 1949.
Redtop maintained a particular-ly
dense turf and most effectively
controlled weed invasion. It fol-lowed
by alta fescue in these re-spects.
Dallis grass was slow to
establish and did not form a sod
during the first year. Annual rye-grass
made excellent growth the
first season but failed to reseed
adequately under heavy grazing.
Going into the second year La-dino
clover had the best stand of
the clovers. Only moderately suc-cessful
stands of big trefoil and
sub-clover were obtained, but all
three species show considerable
promise for this use. Kobe lespe-deza
made good growth, but it did
not reseed well. In addition, this
species is dead and dry during the
fire season of late winter and early
spring.
The lanes were not inflammable
the first year. Apparently they will
continue to be effective firebreaks
where the sod prevents weedy
growth and is green or closely
grazed in winter and spring.
To date, redtop has provided the
best sod, but it has also suppressed
associated legumes. Ladino or white
Dutch clover and big trefoil are the
most promising legumes tested.
Blood Copper Level
Low in N. C. Animols
The fact that some livestock in
the Coastal Plain area of North
Carolina do not have enough cop-per
in their blood may mean that
the native vegetation of this area
is deficient in copper.
A research team consisting of
H. M. Baxley, Gennard Matrone,
W. J. Weybrew and G. H. Wise has
been investigating the copper status
of eastern Carolina livestock for
the past four years. While the find-ings
are still inconclusive, farmers
will find them interesting.
A small amount of copper as well
as iron is needed to form hemo-globin
in the animal body. Iron may
be absorbed and stored for later
use, but unless there is enough cop-per
in the feed, the animals suffer
from anemia.
Using the amount of copper in
the serum as a measure, the in-vestigators
made tests with dairy
cows and swine in the State College
herds, with native milk cows in the
Coastal Plain, with beef cattle in
the Hoffman Forest area and with
sheep at the Tidewater Experi-ment
Station.
They report that the blood serum
copper of swine is over 100 per
cent higher than that of other
classes of livestock studied. This
leads to speculation that the copper
requirement of swine is higher than
that of other types of livestock.
Since corn is low in copper, it is
possible that swine on high corn
rations do not get enough copper.
Among the cattle and sheep
tested, only the College dairy herd
approached what was considered a
normal level in the copper serum
tests. In contrast with this was
the low level of copper nutrition
found in the beef cattle of Hoffman
Forest and the native milk cows of
the Coastal Plain.
The research team has not yet
determined whether a low level of
copper nutrition affects the animal
production. They did observe during
these studies that the beef cattle
were in poor physical condition
and that reproduction failures were
high.
4 RESEARCH AND FARMING
Does Fertilizaf-ion Improve Nufrit-ion?
Today, the farmer is as much
concerned with the effects of fer-tilizers
on the nutritive value of
his crops as he is with the effects
on yield. His interest stems from
indications that the nutritional
quality of crops directly affects the
productivity of farm animals and
indirectly affects the health of our
people.
In line with this reasoning, a
research team headed by Gennard
Matrone is conducting long-term
experiments with sheep at the Tide-water
Experiment Station and at
the Central Station near Raleigh.
Their purpose is to find out (1) if
the use of phosphate fertilizer on
soil low in phosphorus will improve
the health and productivity of suc-cessive
generations of sheep fed
crops grown on this soil; and (2)
if applying phosphate fertilizer to
a soil low in this element will
change the nutritive value of crops
grown thereon.
In this study, the sheep have ac-cess
to a year-around pasture ro-tation
consisting of soybeans, rye
grass and lespedeza. Lime and pot-ash
are added to all pastures, but
phosphate is added to only half of
them. When necessary, the grazing
is supplemented with corn and soy-bean
hay—both grown under the
same fertilization treatment as the
pastures.
During the two years thus far,
the investigators have found no
conclusive diffei'ences in the health
and productivity of sheep in the
two groups. But differences in the
nutritive value of the soybean hays
receiving these treatments were
found during the third-crop year.
In this phase of the experiment,
the hay was analyzed and tested in
controlled feeding experiments and
digestion trials using lambs and
rabbits. From these tests it became
evident that when the levels of
phosphorus in the soil were ex-tremely
low, phosphate fertiliza-tion
changed the nutritive value
and chemical composition—espe-cially
in phosphorus and crude pro-tein
content. Fertilization increased
the yield of soybean hay by two-or
three-fold and improved the nu-tritive
value of the hay for lambs
and for rabbits.
The factor causing the dietary
difference for sheep appeared to
be the extra phosphorus in the
fertilized hay. The factors causing
the differences in the rabbit trials
were not discovered. No evidence
was found to indicate that phos-phate
fertilization altered the
availability of the phosphorus or
the protein quality of the soybean
hay for either rabbits or lambs.
It must be borne in mind, how-ever,
that the results were obtained
at a relatively low level of phos-phate
fertilization under conditions
of extreme soil phosphorus deple-tion
using one forage species. The
effects of a wider range of phos-phate
fertilization on soybeans and
other forages are yet to be de-termined.
LADING PRODUCES 136 POUNDS OF LAMB PER ACRE
Ladino clover-fescue pasture pro-duced
an average of 136 pounds of
lamb per acre in winter grazing
trials at the Animal Husbanry
Farm near Raleigh. Lambs in the
experiments gained an average of
0.22 pounds per day.
E. R. Barrick, W. W. Woodhouse,
Jr., F. H. Smith and H. L. Lucas
undertook the test to determine the
amount of winter grazing that can
be expected from Ladino-fescue
pasture. The pasture used had been
established in the fall of 1948. It
was grazed from the spring of 1949
until October 1, 1949. Then grazing
was deferred to permit some forage
to accumulate before the experi-ment
was started November 15.
Twenty pasture plots, each about
0.28 acre in size, were grazed con-tinuously
with grade Hampshire
feeder lambs. The pastures were
stocked at the rate of seven feeder
lambs (approximately one animal
unit) per acre.
All of the plots provided con-tinuous
grazing until February 1,
and some carried the animals until
February 16. The rate of gain was
somewhat higher for the first 60
days (0.28 pounds per lamb per
day) than for the latter part of the
grazing period.
Fertilizaf-ion Alters
Composition of Plants
Applications of phosphate fer-tilizer
were found to alter the chem-ical
composition of several plants
grown on soil low in phosphorus,
according to F. W. Sherwood. Sher-wood
heads a research team inves-tigating
the effects of phosphate
fertilization on such crops as soy-beans,
corn, oats and rye grass.
Fertilization of soybeans with
phosphorus increased the content
of phosphorus, crude protein, cal-cium
and magnesium in the hay.
The carotene and riboflavin con-tents
of air-dried leaves were also
increased by fertilization. But since
some of the carotene in leafy ma-terial
is lost during drying, it is
not certain that fertilization af-fected
the carotene content on the
fresh material basis.
The proportion of leaves, pods
and stems was not influenced sig-nificantly
by fertilization. However,
the mean weight of individual
plants receiving phosphorus was
two and a half times as great as
those without phosphorus in the
1947 hay crop. The leaves which
made up only about a fourth of the
total weight of the plants con-tained
93.4 per cent of the total
carotene, 62.7 per cent of the total
riboflavin, 38.2 per cent of the pro-tein,
37.7 per cent of the calcium,
21 per cent of the magnesium and
32.1 per cent of the phosphorus.
The pods, amounting to about 20
per cent of the total weight, con-tained
37.6 per cent of the phos-phorus,
29.9 per cent of the total
crude protein, 19.5 per cent of the
calcium and 21 per cent of the
magnesium. The stems which were
54.2 per cent of the plant contained
30.3 per cent of the phosphorus,
31.9 per cent of the crude protein,
42.8 per cent of the calcium and
58.1 per cent of the magnesium in
the plant. These were the values
for the phosphated hay, though
those for the non-phosphated hay
were similar.
Phosphate fertilization of corn
grown under the same conditions as
the soybean hay increased the
phosphorus content of the corn
slightly. The protein, however, was
unaffected.
1949 ANNUAL REPORT
Cl^OSSSPED ^^- PUP£BPiD
Purebred Native Cross
Lamb weiqht
(lbs. at 120 daqs) 75.
H-Fleece
lA/eiqhi- ^^<i^.,JL,=5.;.^iJi
Productivi-ij pee ewe Qp
(fleece convfiKted io •;=?
lamb ec^uivaienf (lbs.)) ""
Western Cross
CROSSBRED EWES EXCEL PUREBREDS
During the past two years,
many North Carolina farmers have
bought Western ewes for stai-ting
or expanding their farm flocks.
Their purchases have led to con-siderable
discussion as to the rela-tive
merits of western and local
breeds of sheep.
An experiment being conducted
at the Upper Mountain Experiment
Station by Lemuel Goode, H. A.
Stewart and J. A. Graham is shed-ding
some light on this and other
sheep breeding problems. The scien-tists
are comparing three systems
of breeding: (1) mating purebred
Hampshire ewes to purebred Hamp-shire
rams; (2) mating native
Hampshire ewes to rams of mutton
breeds in rotation; and (3) mating
crossbred western ewes to pure-bred
Hampshire rams.
A summary of four years' re-sults
shows that both the western
and grade Hampshire ewes have
weaned more lambs than the pure-bred
Hampshires. As indicated in
the accompanying figure, lambs
from western ewes weighed slight-ly
less at 120 days of age. But fleece
weights for western ewes averaged
two pounds heavier than those from
purebred Hampshires.
Goode and his associates com-puted
total ewe productivity by con-verting
fleece weight to lamb equiv-alent.
COW'S COLOSTRUM BEST SUBSTITUTE FOR BABY PIGS
Many faim families have tried
the difficult task of hand-feeding
newborn pigs that either could or
would not be fed by their mother.
Failure is common in such cases,
since few pigs live that do not have
access to sow's colostrum.
North Carolina workers have pre-viously
reported success in rearing
pigs removed from their dams at
three days of age. In fact, growth
rates of these pigs reared on forti-fied
milk diets have been superior
to those of nursing pigs.
The latest experiments, conducted
by E. R. Barrick, G, Matrone, H, A.
Stewart and G. H. Wise, involve
pigs removed from their dams at
birth. Five difi'erent diets were
used, with either cow's colostrum
or fresh cow's milk as the basis
of each. All diets were fortified with
minerals and vitamins A, D, and C.
The number of pigs used to date
has been too limited to be conclu-sive.
However, the cow's colostrum
has given the best survival—ap-proximately
70 per cent. The sur-viving
pigs averaged 24 pounds in
weight at five weeks of age. Sev-eral
of the pigs developed muscular
find leg abnormalities,
Supplement's Improve
Cotfonseed Meal Value
Cottonseed meal is one of the
South's most abundant protein sup-plements
for livestock feed. Yet
swine growers have not been able
to use it as their main protein
supplement because it is sometimes
poisonous to hogs.
In addition, plant protein concen-trates
alone have not been a satis-factory
supplement to corn. Only
since animal protein factor con-centrates
became available has it
been possible to get normal growth
and fattening on rations made up
of corn and peanut meal.
E. R. Barrick, H. A. Stewart, G.
Matrone, F. H. Smith, E. H. Hos-tetler
and G. H. Wise are exploring
the possibility of improving cotton-seed
meal as a supplement for
growing and fattening hogs. Previ-ous
experiments had shovra that
treating cottonseed meal with fer-rous
sulfate aided in overcoming
the toxic efl'ects.
In these exploratory tests, ani-mal
protein factor and ferrous sul-fate
were used separately and in
combination as supplements. The
basal ration consisted of corn, cot-tonseed
meal, alfalfa meal, minerals
and riboflavin.
Results for the first six weeks
showed a definite growth advantage
for the addition of animal protein
factor and ferrous sulfate. Pigs on
the basal cottonseed meal ration
made an average daily gain of only
0.25 pounds. Those receiving the
ferrous sulfate in addition averaged
0.58 pounds of gain per day, while
those receiving animal protein fac-tor
averaged 0.60 pounds. Where the
combination of animal protein fac-tor
and ferrous sulfate was used,
average gain was 0.86 pounds daily.
Similar pigs on a mixed protein
supplement of meat scraps, soy-bean
meal and cottonseed meal
gained an average of 1.48 pounds
per pig per day for the six-week-period.
In view of this latter comparison,
Barrick and his associates conclude
that the ferrous sulfate and animal
protein factor concentrate at the
rates used did not correct all the
limitations of the corn-cottonseed-meal-
alfalfa meal ration.
RESEARCH AND FARMING
These drawings illustrate the methods tested for proiecting hams from skipper flies.
PROTECT HAMS FROM SKIPPER FLIES
Several devices tested for pro-tecting
hams from skipper flies
have proved effective, reports B. B.
Fulton. Fulton conducted the tests
in a room constantly stocked with
skippers.
Following are descriptions of de-vices
which proved successful and
which are illustrated under the cor-responding
letters in the accom-panying
diagram:
A. Ham wrapped in common
wrapping paper and suspended in a
sack. Two kinds of sacks were used
(1) cotton feed sack which ex-cluded
the flies, and (2) open mesh
orange sack which gave the flies
access to the paper wrapper. Both
were successful, but the first prob-ably
is safer.
B. Ham suspended by a single
wire and enclosed in a large paper
sack, tied tightly around the wire.
C. Ham suspended by a single
wire and enclosed in a cotton feed
sack, tied around the wire and
hanging loosely around the ham.
D. The same as C except the wire
is run through the center of a disc
of corrugated cardboard which
serves to hold the sack away from
the meat.
E. Ham packed in and sur-rounded
by dry hay in a large sack
and suspended by twine tied around
the neck of the sack. Both cotton
and burlap sacks were successful.
A ham suspended in a cotton
sack, as in "A" but without the
paper wrapping, developed skip-pers.
All hams kept in the room
without any protection, became in-fested
with skippers in a few days,
except one heavily coated with
black pepper which remained free
for over two months.
When laying eggs the skipper
flies seemed to show a preference
for cured pork but also deposited
eggs on bones, raw beef and fresh
pork. When skipper eggs on meat
v/ere covered with salt and kept at
ordinary room temperature they
hatched, and the maggots entered
the meat. When eggs were placed
on salt-covered pork and kept for
a month in the curing room at
38 °F., they failed to hatch.
A piece of ham with skipper eggs
was smoked for two days. During
that time the eggs hatched and
young maggots were crawling on
the meat when it was removed from
the smoke. In order to determine
what surface temperature on a
ham would be needed to kill skip-per
eggs, many lots of eggs were
dipped in warm water for different
periods and temperatures. At
130°F., the skipper eggs are killed
in one minute, but at 125°F. about
eight minutes are required, and at
122°F. the eggs survived 20 min-utes
exposure.
Type of Salt Does Not
Vary Speed of Curing
Some farmers and food locker
operators have reported that the
speed with which salt penetrates
pork loins during curing varies with
the type of salt crystals used. An
experiment just completed by T. N.
Blumer, F. H. Smith, W. Edmunt
Tyler and Alexa Williams did not
bear out these reports.
The investigators selected six
loins from six different hogs of
similar weight and breeding. A
twelve-inch section was cut from
the same portion of each loin, then
boned and trimmed f)-ee of fat. It
was then cut into three pieces of
equal length.
The three samples from each loin
were randomized, then each was
treated with one of the three types
of salt being tested—fine flake,
medium flake and granulated.
Twelve grams of salt were applied
evenly over the exposed surface,
and the samples stored at 40 de-grees
F. for eight days. They were
then removed and sliced into cross
sections to permit study of the rate
and depth of salt penetration.
Blumer and his associates found
no difference in the rate of penetra-tion
nor the amount of salt ab-sorbed.
Neither were there differ-ences
in the moisture loss or
amount of salt in the drip.
1949 ANNUAL REPORT
POULTRY
Hybrid Chickens Are on the Way
Close inbreeding of chickens
—
brother to sister, son to mother,
half-brother to half-sister, etc.
has led to the development of
strains with improved growth rate
and feathering at the Central and
Mountain Experiment Stations.
Ten lines of poultry have been
intensively inbred for three to five
yeiars under the supervision of
E. W. Glazener, W. L. Blow and
R. S. Dearstyne. The workers re-port
eight promising lines devel-oped
from White Leghorns, New
Hampshires, Barred Plymouth
Rocks and Rhode Island Reds.
Inbreeding serves to purify
strains for crossing in hybrid breed-ing
experiments. It helps uncover
weaknesses in a strain so that
birds with undesirable characteris-tics
can be culled. Inbreeding also
helps to "fix" desirable factors.
High inbred Rhode Island Reds
and White Leghorns have not only
produced well, but show a hatch-ability
of around 80 to 85 per cent
of all eggs set in 1949. High in-breds
of these two strains perform
almost as well as those inbred very
little, while Barred Plymouth Rocks
appear less promising.
While none of the lines developed
so far excel in all the desired eco-nomics
traits—such as egg size,
broiler qualities, production and
ability to live—all have some de-sirable
characteristics. Next year
single-cross hybrids will be pro-duced
from two of the most promis-ing
inbred lines.
Body Weight
Degree Sexuol Egg ^t Sexual
of Inbreeding Moturity Production Mortality Maturity Egg Weight
(Days) (Six Months) (Per Cent) (Pounds) (Oz Per Doz )
. ...*-. .
0—12.5 188 -
1 1 1 1
12.5—25.0 : 188 :
nil
25.0—50
,1.11 _
5l92 -
till 1
-
Utility Bird is Aim of Tests at Willard
Developing a utility bird suitable
for general farm conditions is the
aim of poultry breeding studies at
the Willard Experiment Station.
The Station keeps a flock of about
700 Rhode Island Reds for study,
with 25 per cent of them being
selected each year for breeders.
E. W. Glazener, W. L. Blow and
R. S. Dearstyne who are conducting
the studies say these birds are se-lected
for egg production, egg size
and shape, hatchability and broiler
qualities at 12 weeks of age. As
mates, 12 to 15 males are selected
for their broiler qualities and on
their sisters' performances.
Just as preparations were being
made for the hatching season in
1949, Newcastle struck the flock.
almost halting egg production.
While birds older than one year
regained normal production within
about six weeks, young birds were
still below normal production after
12 weeks. Some of these most af-fected
were laying abnormally-shaped
eggs a year after the dis-ease
was contracted.
Complete records were kept on
the flock, and financial losses esti-mated
on the basis of normal pro-duction
during previous years. Loss
to the hatcheryman was estimated
to average a conservative $3.00 per
bird in net return for the three
months following the outbreak.
The poultry scientists say vac-cination
seems to be more practical
at this time than breeding New-castle
resistance into birds.
Sulfa Drug Shows Promise for Preventing, Curing Fowl Typhoid
At least one of the sulfa drugs — sulfaquinoxaline — has definite
possibilities for preventing and cur-ring
severe outbreaks of fowl ty-phoid.
B. F. Cox and F. R. Craig
say their tests show this drug helps
control the disease when given in
drinking water in amounts recom-mended
for the continuous method
of coccidiosis treatment.
Birds treated 24 hours before
disease exposure, at the time of ex-posure
and 48 hours after exposure
all recovered from the disease after
five days of treatment. All birds
receiving no treatment died within
six days.
All birds in the tests were artifi-cially
infected with measured
amounts of a fowl typhoid culture.
Sulfa drugs were then added to
drinking water. Those receiving-water
treated with a soluble form
of either sulfaguanidine or a com-bination
of sulfaguanidine and sul-fone
refused to drink. They died
before those receiving no treatment.
However, treatment with the sul-faquinoxaline-
sulfone combination
in medicated feed apparently gave
some protection against the dis-ease.
Non-lethal injections of fowl
typhoid organisms brought positive
reactions to the pullorum whole
blood test in all cases except those
treated with the combination.
8 RESEARCH AND FARMING
Biopsy Needle Used
In Poultry Studies
Development of a special instru-ment
for removing living tissue has
been a great help to F. W. Cook
in his poultry blood studies.
Called the Turkel biopsy needle,
the device is used widely in human
surgery and has now been adapted
for use on poultry. It was invented
by Dr. Henry Turkel who has given
Cook much assistance with the use
of biopsy needles on poultry.
Combinations of needle lengths
and gauges are being tried with
different-sized birds. Special meas-ures
are being taken to control
bleeding from the puncture—one of
the most pressing problems at pres-ent.
The Turkel bone marrow needle,
already widely used in human sur-gery,
is now being used to remove
bone marrow from poultry. The ex-tremely
dense bones of chickens
and turkeys are hard to drill and
require a needle made of especially
tough tool steel.
Cook has also been able to im-prove
his method of numerical cell
counting. He has found that the
clotting agent in blood—fibrinogen
—helps to isolate white blood cells
and thus simplify blood counts
when large amounts of it are added
to whole blood.
Phases of this problem still to be
studied include fractionation of the
cellular content of the whole blood
and staining of cell types of the
fluid tissue.
Vaccine Checks Newcastle at Willard
-,1
These young birds are being vaccinated for Newcastle disease.
The natural outbreak of New-castle
disease in the Willard Ex-periment
Station flock provided an
excellent opportunity to record the
progress of the disease and the ef-fects
of vaccination.
B. F. Cox used killed vaccine to
vaccinate four-week-old chicks
hatched on the premises from eggs
collected before symptoms showed
up in the hens. Nearly a year after
vaccination no respiratory infec-tions
had appeared in the group.
Four months after diagnosis 480
blood tests showed 32.7 per cent
absolutely negative and only 2.7
per cent positive. The remainder
showed too little inhibition power
to be classed as positive.
Birds retained as breeders were
vaccinated with one-half the recom-mended
dose of killed vaccine. Five
months later 134 blood tests for
Newcastle were made. Only one of
the birds was completely negative
for inhibition power. The same bird
had been negative following natural
exposure.
Eighty-eight per cent of the
breeders showed an increase in
inhibitiott power. Ten per cent re-mained
the same, and only three
birds showed a decrease.
Bronze Turkeys Improve in Type, Egg Production, Hatchability
The Station's turkey breeding
project begun in 1940 has led to
important improvements in large
bronze turkeys. C. H. Bostian, R.
S. Dearstyne and E. W. Glazener
report reduction in broodiness and
length of production pauses, better
hatchability, higher egg production,
lower mortality and improvement
in type.
In 1949 the total days lost from
broodiness and production pauses
of over five days was only 7.06
per cent—the lowest since the proj-ect
began. During the past year,
74.1 per cent of the birds tested
showed neither broodiness nor
pauses over five days.
The number of birds qualifying
for Record of Performance and the
average intensity of lay were both
higher during the past year than
before. Birds must show 50 per
cent production in the first eight
weeks of lay to meet R.O.P. re-quirements.
In the Station flock,
83 per cent qualified for R.O.P.,
while the average intensity of lay
for all birds under test was 63
per cent.
Each of the 64 birds kept for the
entire laying year produced over
100 eggs. Eight laid between 150
and 160 eggs, six between 160 and
170, seven between 170 and 180,
five between 180 and 190, and
seven between 190 and 200. The
highest producer laid 208 eggs.
The mortality rate for the first
six months of life was 8.68 per
cent—the lowest on Station rec-ords.
Only 3.1 per cent of the hens
died during the first 90 days of lay.
To check improvement in body
type, shank and keel, measurements
are made of body depth and breast
width. These measurements were
considered in selecting breeders.
1949 ANNUAL REPORT
PULLORUM TOPS DISEASE LISTING
A survey of 4,043 autopsies made over a 12-month period at the Poultry
Disease Diagnostic Laboratory revealed the most common causes of poultry
mortality. F. R. Craig reports the breakdow^n as listed in the accompanying
table.
Age Groups
Range Adults Per Cent
Diagnosis Broilers 12- Over Total of
0-12 wks. 24wks. 24-wks. Total**
Disease:
Pullorum 161 7 22 190 16.46
Coccidiosis 167 12 2 181 15.68
Leukosis 16 36 98 150 13.00
Newcastle: 90 18 30 138 11.96
Positive* 44 11 27 82 (7.11)
Suspicious* 13 1 14 (1.21)
Negative* 33 6 3 42 (3.64)
Blue comb 2 29 47 78 6.76
Respiratory 32 12 19 63 5.46
Omphalitis 61 61 5.29
Typhoid 3 19 21 43 3.73
Nutritional Deficiencies 21 4 3 28 2.43
Blackhead 8 14 5 27 2.34
Streptococcus 21 3 2 26 2.25
Paratyphoid 21 21 1.82
Fowl Pox 6 3 9 18 1.56
Epidemic tremor 16 16 1.39
Stunted Chick Disease . 11 11 0.95
Fowl cholera 2 5 7 0.61
Colibacilosis 4 4 0.35
Miscellaneous disease 30 28 34 92 7.97
Totals 670 187 297 1154 100.00
Parasites:**
Tapeworms 7 22 28 57 42.54
Roundworms 14 14 28 56 41.79
Crop worms 1 6 7 5.22
Body lice 2 5 7 5.22
Miscellaneous 1 6 7 5.22
Totals 22 39 73 134 100.00
* Not included in totals.
** Diseases and parasites calculated separately.
Autopsies are often necessary to determine the cause of poultry losses.
Free-Choice Feeding
Boosts Turkey Gains
Bronze turkeys during 12 weeks
of confinement gain weight in di-rect
proportion to their intake of
protein up to 32 per cent, Ex-periment
Station tests show. The
free-choice method of feeding grain
with a 24 to 32 per cent protein
mash produced the greatest weight
gains.
J. W. Kelly, R. S. Dearstyne and
H. L. Lucas kept the control flock
on a 24 per cent protein mash diet
with corn and oats added after
eight weeks. Experimental flocks
were given mashes containing 20,
24, 28, 32 and 36 per cent protein,
cracked corn from the first day
and oats beginning the fifth week.
The birds were weighed at 14-day
intervals to 12 weeks and 28-day
intervals thereafter. Male poults
on the control diet showed a mean
weight of 5.7 pounds at 12 weeks.
Male birds fed the other diets
ranged from 4.4 pounds for the
20 per cent mash to 6.6 for the 32
per cent protein mash. The 36 per
cent mash produced a mean weight
of 6.3 pounds.
Turkeys fed 20 per cent mash
needed 3.19 pounds of feed to pro-duce
a pound of meat, while those
on the 36 per cent ration needed
2.95 pounds. Poults on the 36 per
cent protein mash selected mash
for 60 per cent of their ration.
Those on 24 per cent control mash,
however, selected 89 per cent of
their ration from mash. The weight
advantage gained by feeding the
high-protein mash almost disap-pears
after birds reach 28 weeks
of age.
Feed efficiency tends to decrease
as oats consumption is increased.
The turkeys on the 36 per cent
mash selected 38 per cent of the diet
from mash, 9 per cent corn, and 53
per cent oats; thus requiring 5.3
pounds of feed per pound of meat.
Whereas the birds on the 20 per
cent mash produced a pound of
meat on 4.8 pounds of feed which
consisted of 73 per cent mash, 3
per cent corn and 24 per cent oats.
The 24 per cent control mash pro-duced
a pound of turkey on 4.8
pounds of feed consisting of 62 per
cent mash, 6 per cent corn, and 32
per cent oats.
10 RESEARCH AND FARMING
DAirtYINC
Time-Motion Studies in Milk Plants
The man-minutes required to re-ceive
each can of milk varied from
less than one minute to almost two
and a half minutes in milk plant
receiving operations studied by J.
P. Nelson and W. M. Roberts. An
all-day time study was made of
each operation, and then specific
functions common to all plants
were segregated and timed in more
detail.
The milk plants studied were
grouped according to the volume of
milk handled. Those handling from
10,000 to 20,000 pounds daily re-quired
an average of 4.290 man-minutes
to receive 100 pounds of
milk. Those in the 20-30M group av-eraged
2.449 man-minutes; 30-50,
1.920 man-minutes; and over 50M,
1.776.
The man-minutes required to re-ceive
each can of milk according
to the same groupings were 2.351,
1.680, .990 and 1.162, respectively.
The total time spent with each pro-ducer
expressed as man-minutes
was 7.390, 7.290, 2.821 and 9.908,
respectively.
The functions in the receiving
operation were broken down into
the following elements:
1. Position can, remove lid and
smell contents.
2. Position can at dump station,
dump and drain.
3. Place can in can washer (if
rotary can washer, remove
can to conveyor).
4. Get milk thief, draw milk
sample and replace sample
bottle and thief.
5. Observe and record weights.
Numerous time readings were
made on each element in all of the
dairy plants. Average and range
values of all readings for each ele-ment
were as follows:
Average Man-
Element Man- Minutes
Number Minutes Range
1 .076 .053-.102
2 .06 .041-.091
3 .077 .02 -.234
4 .165 .055-.393
5 .217 .061-.379
The large variation in element
Nos. 3, 4 and 5 was due primarily
to differences in equipment.
A stop-watch is used to time handling of milk cans on the receiving line.
Labor Ut-ilization Studied at Dairy Plants
The production time needed for
processing different dairy products
varies widely from plant to plant
and from day to day in the same
plant.
This was shown in a labor utili-zation
study made by A. G. Slagle,
J. P. Nelson, R. B. Redfern and
W. M. Roberts in six fluid milk
processing plants. The plants se-lected
for study ranged from 10,-
000 to 30,000 pounds in volume of
milk handled and had different
methods of processing. Observa-tions
extended over one full week
at each plant.
The man-minutes of production
time necessary for pasteurizing and
cooling 100 pounds of the different
dairy products varied considerably.
The average values for all plants
were 2.65 man-minutes for grade
A, 3.69 man-minutes for homogen-ized
vitamin D milk, 6.93 for choco-late
milk, 9.07 for buttermilk, 9.54
for skim milk, and 21.31 for cream.
Bottling time per package dif-fered
considerably between plants.
Bottling times ranged from .0987
minutes per quart for quarts of
Grade A pasteurized milk to .7249
minutes for whipping cream.
Processing time was also checked to find ways of improving efficiency.
1949 ANNUAL REPORT 11
HTST Promising in Commercial Tests
The high-temperature-short-time
(HTST) method of pasteurizing
chocolate milk which has appeared
promising in laboratory tests, con-tinued
to show up well in plant
studies using commercial equip-ment.
In these tests, chocolate milk
was exposed to temperatures of
161, 168 and 175 degrees F. for
periods of 19 and 40 seconds in
plant equipment. Each experiment
was compared to two control pas-teurizations
of 143 degrees F. for
30 minutes and 160 degrees F. for
20 minutes conducted in the labora-tory.
The former exposure was
used since it is the present stand-ard
recommended by the U. S.
Public Health Service and Code.
The latter is the exposure general-ly
used in the industry to obtain
non-settling chocolate milk.
Data collected by Marvin L.
Speck and analyzed by H. L. Lucas
indicated that exposures at 175 de-grees
F. for 19 and 40 seconds and
at 168 degrees F. for 40 seconds
gave destruction of bacteria com-parable
to pasteurization at 160
degrees F. for 20 minutes.
Since this regular holder method
of pasteurization (160 degrees F.
for 20 minutes) gives a generous
margin of safety, Speck believes
that a transition to HTST pas-teurization
at 175 degrees F. for
19 to 40 seconds would offer no
public health hazard. One main
reason for preferring the HTST
method is that the chocolate settled
less.
Rancidity Inhibits Milk-Souring Bacteria
It may come as a surprise to
many milk consumers, but milk
that won't sour normally is some-times
as serious a problem as pre-venting
souring in milk intended for
fresh use. During the past two
years, a number of North Carolina
farmers have reported that milk
from certain cows failed to sour in
the preparation of buttermilk and
sour cream on the farm.
Preliminary experiments indicat-ed
that rancidity developed in the
milk in such cases. With this in-formation
in hand, R. N. Costilow
and Marvin L. Speck undertook to
determine the effect of rancidity
in milk upon the growth of desir-able
milk-souring bacteria.
They found that rancidity did in-hibit
the growth of several of the
important milk-souring bacteria in-cluding
Streptococcus lactis. Others
were not measurably affected.
The investigators demonstrated
further that the inhibition could
not be attributed to either the
slight reduction in pH or the re-duced
surface tension noted in ran-cid
milk. Rather, the inhibition was
shown to be due to the intermedi-ate
fatty acids—capric, caprylic and
lauric. The other fatty acids known
to be in butterfat were not found
to have any significant activity as
inhibitors.
SLICED BERRIES GIVE BEST FLAVOR IN ICE CREAM
The amount, method of prepara-tion
and variety of fruit were
shown to be important factors in
preparing strawberry ice cream, in
an investigation conducted by M.
B. Moseley, W. S. Arbuckle and I.
D. Jones.
The Massey, Missionary, Blake-more
and 1039 varieties of straw-berries
were compared as to their
desirability for use in ice cream.
The Missionary and 1039 varieties
produced ice cream with more
color and more pronounced flavor.
The ice cream containing the Mas-sey
strawberry had a mild flavor
and had superior keeping qualities.
A finely sliced berry produced
the most desirable flavor, body and
texture characteristics in ice cream.
Pulped fruit used at the rate of
10, 15 and 20 per cent was com-pared
to finely sliced fruit used
at the rate of 10, 15, 20 and 25 per
cent. The ice cream containing 20
per cent pulped fruit was approxi-mately
equal in flavor intensity
to ice cream containing 20 to 25
per cent finely sliced fruit. Both
were superior in flavor.
Study Nutrition Needs
Of Young Dairy Calves
What are the nutritional require-ments
of the young dairy calf?
To answer this question, R. K.
Waugh, G. H. Wise, J. S. Huff and
D. W. Colvard are using purified
or synthetic diets on test calves.
These diets are compounded from
known ingredients including carbo-hydrates,
proteins, fats, minerals,
vitamins and water mixed in the
desired proportions. Their main ad-vantage
is that a single ingredient
can be omitted entirely or added
to the diet in varying amounts with-out
disturbing the others.
In previous studies, calves re-ceiving
purified diets containing
3.5 per cent hydrogenated cotton-seed
oil developed fatty livers and
low blood plasma fat. The 1949
work was aimed at determining the
effect of an emulsifying agent—
glycerol-mono-stearate—when add-ed
to the diet containing the hydro-genated
cottonseed oil.
Fifteen calves were fed from the
time they were taken from the cow
to six weeks or age on three puri-fied
diets, each containing the
same basal mixture. Diet A con-tained
the basal mixture plus 3.5
per cent hydrogenated cottonseed
oil and was homogenized. Diet B
was the same as A except that it
contained 0.5 per cent glycerol-mono-
stearate in addition. Diet C
was identical to Diet B except that
it was not homogenized.
There was a better gain in body
weight of calves on Diet A than
on either B or C. The gain was
poorest on Diet C.
The fat content of the livers of
calves on all three diets was higher
than normally found in calves fed
whole milk. The blood plasma fat
and blood plasma choline was sig-nificantly
higher in calves fed Diet
B which contained the emulsifying
agent, than in calves fed Diet A
which did not contain the emulsify-ing
agent. There was very little
difference in the hemoglobin con-tent
of the blood of calves fed any
of the three diets. The hemoglobin
content was high in all cases.
All calves on Diet C manifested
an interesting peculiarity of a loss
of hair around the anus and tail.
12 RESEARCH AND FARMING
Calf Sf-arter Permits Early Weaning
This was one of the calves used in the nutrition studies at Waynesville.
Guernsey and Jersey female
calves may be weaned from whole
milk at seven weeks of age, judging
from a two-year study conducted at
the Mountain Experiment Station
by R. K. Waugh, D. W. Colvard,
Howard Clapp and Ray Jarvis.
The 25 calves in this test were
weaned when they were either sev-en,
nine, or twelve weeks of age
and had received 260, 361 and 537
pounds of milk, respectively. Calves
on the lowest milk diet of 260
pounds received a maximum of
seven pounds per day.
This amount of milk will pro-duce
satisfactory growth if the calf
is taught to eat enough of a good
dry starter, the investigators found.
Calves should not be weaned until
they are eating a pound of starter
a day.
Good alfalfa hay was fed free
choice along with no more than
four pounds per day of a 19 per
cent protein calf starter. The dry
starter was changed to a 14 per
cent protein mixture after four
months of age.
A commercial substitute is now
being studied to determine whether
or not the amount of whole milk
can be reduced further.
HEIFERS THRIVE ON SILAGE WITH SUPPLEMENTS
Limited amounts of protein sup-plements
appeared to be an ade-quate
substitute for hay in tests
with maturing dairy heifers con-ducted
by C. D. Grinnells and J. L.
Moore.
Eight purebred Ayrshire heifers
were fed all the sorghum silage they
would eat. Four were fed a supple-ment
of 2 pounds of cottonseed
meal per day and no hay. Four
were fed a supplement of 1 pound
of cottonseed meal and 5 pounds
of a good quality of lespedeza hay
per day. Both groups of heifers
were thrifty and made a fair
grovdih.
The groups receiving 2 pounds
of cottonseed meal per animal per
day made better gains in weight
and in height at withers. However,
both rations will grow good heifers
if supplemented with an ample
supply of good grazing.
WOOD MOLASSES TESTED
Palatability apparently will not
be a limiting factor in the use of
wood molasses as a feed for dairy
cattle.
A research team headed by C. D.
Grinnells has determined that cows
will eat a concentrate mixture con-
Ca Ifhood Fevers
Do Nof Affect
Bull Fertility
Calfhood fever, either natural or
artificially produced, appears to
have little or no effect upon the
subsequent fertility of bulls, ac-cording
to the findings of a re-search
team consisting of F. I.
Elliott, C. D. Grinnells, R. K.
Waugh, A. L. McLaughlin and T.
C. Blalock.
The fever studies are part of an
effort to determine the causes of
poor fertility in bulls—a problem
that grows in importance with the
increased use of artificial breeding.
In one phase of this study, four
bulls were given fever artificially
by injections of a mixture of sulfur
in olive oil. Four more bulls, carried
as controls, received no treatment.
The average daily temperature of
the treated bulls was increased two
to three degrees above normal for
about three weeks.
Since it was not possible to meas-ure
the fertility of the bulls by
means of breeding trials, the semen
was evaulated using other criter-ions
of fertility. No difference in
the semen quality of the two groups
could be noted. Also evaluated in
these tests was semen from a ninth
bull which had had a natural fever
due to a respiratory ailment as a
young calf. Again, no differences
were noted.
As a further test of possible
fever effects, tissue was taken by
means of biopsy from the testicles
of the experimental animals both
before and after treatment. Ex-amination
of stained slides of tissue
did not reveal any difference be-tween
the treated and untreated
animals.
However, semen quality declined
in all cases following the second
biopsy. In fact no sperm could be
found in some samples.
FOR FEEDING DAIRY COWS
taining 20 per cent wood molasses.
The molasses, made by hydrolyzing
wood chips with sulfuric acid, are
very dark in color and bitter.
The study is being continued to
determine the value of wood mo-lasses
for supporting milk produc-tion.
1949 ANNUAL REPORT 13
A large swelling under the jaw (bottle jaw) is a symptom of stomach worms.
Heavy Grazing Increases Parasites
The parasite population in-creases
so rapidly in young calves
on heavily grazed pasture that the
animals die where grazing per-sists.
Only one out of six calves tested
under these conditions by C. D.
Grinnells and J. L. Moore survived
the experiment. The five calves
that died were lost shortly after
drouth periods. Drouth increases
the build-up in larvae numbers, and
the larvae are easily harvested by
the animals as the grass begins to
grow following drouth.
In these tests, parasite-free
calves were placed on two groups
of parasite-infested pasture pad-docks.
The paddocks where the ani-mals
died were grazed twice as
heavily as the others. There were
no deaths on the lightly grazed
plots, although the parasite popu-lations
were extremely heavy at
the time of slaughter.
Another phase of the parasite
study was started in 1949 to de-termine
the possible relationship
between soil types and the preva-lence
of parasites. Several differ-ent
soil types are included in this
study.
Seven different soil types were in-fested
with parasites by fertilizing
them with manure from an artifi-cially
infected calf. Three plots of
each soil type were included.
Each plot was seeded on March
29 with Kentucky bluegrass ani
red top. Grass stands were not suf-ficiently
uniform to justify larva
counts. Hence, no results were ob-tained
the first year.
Grinnells and Moore point out
that the best way to reduce the
number of parasites or larvae on
a pasture is to graze only animals
that are resistant. Mature cattle
have an age immunity, while horses
and mules have a species immunity.
Dried "Sweets" Rival
Corn As Dairy Feed
Milk cows fed a concentrate mix-ture
containing up to 48 per cent
dehydrated sweet potatoes were
producing as much milk at the end
of three to five months as cows re-ceiving
similar amounts of corn.
Purpose of these experiments con-ducted
by C. D. Grinnells, J. L.
Moore, R. K. Waugh and D. W.
Colvard was to test the potatoes
over a longer period of time than
had been covered in previous trials.
The potatoes were fed from 90 to
148 days and in amounts ranging
from to 48 per cent of the con-centrate
mixture. Milk production
was as much as when rations con-tained
like amounts of corn.
The investigators caution that
dehydrated sweet potatoes contain
less protein (4.0 to 4.5 per cent)
than corn. Hence, additional
amounts of higher protein feeds
are needed in the concentrate ra-tion
to maintain the protein level.
The potatoes fed in these tests
were of unknown varieties, but
they appeared to be of very good
quality. Cows readily consumed
the rations containing sweet pota-toes,
even when there were abrupt
changes from one ration to an-other.
Dehydrated sweet potatoes have
a tendency to draw moisture and
should not be stored in damp
places. Some caking was observed
in these tests though this was not
a serious problem.
NEW DRUG EFFECTIVE IN CONTROLLING MASTITIS
Aureomycin, one of the new anti-biotic
drugs, shows promise for
treating mastitis in dairy cows,
according to C. D. Grinnells, J. L.
Moore and W. Cranor.
The investigators compared au-reomycin
ointment with penicillin
in water solution during 1949.
Each penicillin treatment contained
100,000 units, while the aureomycin
treatments consisted of 200 mg. A
total of 49 quarters infected with
streptococcus a g alac tia e were
treated—25 with aureomycin and
24 with penicillin. Three weekly
tests on the treated quarters show-ed
the aureomycin to be one-third
more efficient in sterilizing infected
quarters than was penicillin.
Grinnells and his associates em-phasize
that care and management
play an important part in mastitis
control. Good sanitation aids in
clearing up infection and control-ling
its spread. For instance, in
one herd 20 quarters showed evi-dence
of infection during a period
of one year. Twelve of these clear-ed
up without treatment. Seven of
the remaining eight responded to
treatment—five with penicillin and
two with streptomycin.
14 RESEARCH AND FARMING
FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
fl ....•',
. iii*a Siate l..^i ory
TftEE FRUItS
Survey Reveals Apple Insect Damage
An apple insect survey conduct-ed
in Western North Carolina in
1949 by Clyde F. Smith and George
Turnipseed revealed some inter-esting
facts concerning insect dam-age
on certain varieties and in cer-tain
counties. It also indicated that
some insects may be on the in-crease.
For instance, Black Twig, Wine-sap
and Staymen vi^ere the varie-ties
damaged most by the codling
moth. Johnathan and Rome Beauty
were damaged least. Rome Beauty
was also damaged least by leaf-roller,
while Red Delicious was
damaged most.
The heavy apple producing coun-ties
of Wilkes, Alexander and Hay-wood
had the highest insect dam-age.
Over 4 per cent of the apples
surveyed in Wilkes and Alexander
had been stung by codling moth.
Haywood had over 5 per cent leaf-roller
damage.
There was a widespread and
rapid build-up of European red
mites during late June and early
July, 1949. Infestation was so se-vere
in many orchards that it
caused a bronzing of the leaves.
The infestation started to decline
the latter part of July due to na-tural
control, thus making it dif-ficult
to evaluate the different
European Red Mite
miticides tested.
A severe outbreak of the apple
flea weevil was found in an orchard
near Asheville. An experiment was
set up using the following insecti-cides
at the rates indicated per
100 gallons of water: one pound
of 15 per cent parathion, one-half
pound of 15 per cent parathion,
3% pounds of Kryocide, one pound
of benzene hexachloride (25% gam-ma),
four pounds of 25 per cent
toxaphene, two pounds of 50 per
cent Aldrin, and two pounds of 15
per cent dieldi'in.
All of these materials gave bet-ter
than 99 per cent control of the
adult weevils. Normally, the apple
flea weevil is of minor importance
Apple Flea Weevil
17-Year Cicada
as a pest of apples. However,
Smith and Turnipseed believe the
pest could become very abundant
and cause considerable damage to
the foliage.
The 17-year Cicada—an insect
that attacks young apple trees
—
was observed in Caldwell, Burke
and Henderson Counties in 1949.
One orchard in Henderson County
was practically destroyed by the
pest. The adult females cause dam-age
by depositing eggs in the small
trees, thus weakening them and
causing some to break over and
die.
Summer Sprays of DDT, Parathion Cont-rol Peach Tree Borers
Peach Tree Borer
DDT and parathion, used sep-arately
or in combination as sum-mer
sprays, gave fair control of
the peach tree borer in experiments
conducted in two diff"erent orchards
by Clyde F. Smith and Clarence
Black.
The tx-ees were sprayed July 9
and August 10, and checked for
borers on August 25. The summer
sprays were not as eff^ective as
ethylene or propylene dichloride
emulsion used after all of the
moths are through laying eggs.
However, the use of summer sprays
is recommended because most of
the borers are killed before they
have time to do much damage to
the trees.
Plum Curculio
Parathion is also one of the most
promising materials yet used for
the control of plum curculio. By
using parathion in the variety
block at the Sandhills Peach Sta-tion,
Smith and Black produced
fruit that was almost 100 per cent
worm-free. Other materials used
on this same block in previous
years gave control ranging from
to 24 per cent in 1948, to 32 per
cent in 1947, and to 52 per cent in
1946.
Results were equally promising
where parathion was used in com-mercial
orchards under the super-vision
of Smith and Black. One
main disadvantage with using
parathion is that it is very poison-ous
to human beings and must be
used with extreme caution.
Chlordane was also tested for
curculio control but the results
were not satisfactory. This is the
second year of unsatisfactory re-sults
in North Carolina, though
research workers in the Midwest
have obtained good results with
chlordane.
Scale insects
Use of parathion for plum cur-culio
control also gave good con-trol
of the San Jose scale. Rates
of application in these experiments
were one and two pounds of 15 per
cent wettable powder per 100 gal-lons
of spray. The two-pound rate
gave fair control of the white peach
(Continued on Next Page)
16 RESEARCH AND FARMING
Two Types of Spores
Can Spread Black Rot
A detailed cytological study by
C. N. Clayton of the fungus that
causes black rot and leaf spot of
apples has yielded evidence that
both types of spores produced by
the organism can cause the disease.
Physalospora obfiisa is the name
of the fungus which lives in dead
bark of many kinds of plants. It
produces two kinds of spores
—
ascospores and conidia, but only
conidia has been considered of
much importance in causing infec-tion
on apple leaves and fruits.
Clayton now believes that both
types may be important in causing
leaf spot. As a result he is studying
the life history of the fungus, par-ticularly
the ascosporic stage.
Spraying for Insects
Affects Peach Flavor
Taste tests of peaches sprayed
with diiferent pesticides, showed
that there were measurable dif-ferences
in flavor as a result of
spraying. However, Clyde F.
Smith, Ivan D. Jones and Lyle Cal-vin
report that the differences were
so small that they would not in-fluence
consumer purchases of
peaches.
The peaches were sprayed five
times during the season with dif-ferent
combinations of spray ma-terials
which included parathion,
chlordane, acid lead arsenate, ben-zene
hexachloride (two applica-tions
only) , sulfur and phygon. Un-sprayed
trees were left as a check.
Both fresh and canned peaches
were used in the taste tests.
SUMMER SPRAYS
(Continued from Preceding Page)
scale as well, but where the one-pound
rate was used, the white
peach scale was nearly as abund-ant
as on the check plots.
Oriental Fruit Moth
Experiments were planned to
find improved control measures for
the Oriental fruit moth, but the
moth population was extremely low
throughout the Sandhills area in
1949. There was an average of only
2 per cent infested fruit at harvest.
Peaches Benefit From Soil Treatment-
Attempts to reset peach trees on
old peach orchard sites in the
Sandhill area have almost always
resulted in failure. The trees usu-ally
survive for only a few years.
Although several factors un-doubtedly
are involved, it is known
that the root-knot nematodes are
numerous in many old peach or-chard
soils. In such cases, young
peach trees frequently are attacked
by the nematode disease and die
or are severely stunted in the first
or second season after planting.
On older trees the root-knot dis-ease
causes stunting and reduces
yield.
C. N. Clayton began experiments
in 1945 to determine the efi'ects of
treating old peach orchard soil
with chemical fumigants, manure
or cultural practices before setting
the trees. Although it is still too
early to know how long the trees
will live, Clayton has found that
soil fumigants increase the growth
of the trees and yield of peaches.
The fumigants or manure were
applied to the tree sites (8x8
feet) in November, 1945, and Gold-en
Jubilee peach trees were set in
February, 1946. The following
treatments were used: a) chloro-picrin
at the rate of 0.13 pound
per square yard injected about six
inches deep on 10-inch centers; b)
dichloropropane-dichloropene mix-ture
(Shell D-D) at 0.08 pound
per square yard injected in the
same manner as with chloropicrin
;
c) urea (Uramon) broadcast at
the rate of one pound per square
yard and then disked into the soil;
d) stable manure broadcast at the
rate of four pounds per square
yard and disked; and e) untreated.
The surface of the soil after
injection of the chloropicrin or
D-D was kept wet for three days.
The manure treatment was repeat-ed
in the late fall of 1946.
At the end of the first growing
season, root-knot control was very
good where the soil had been treat-ed
with Uramon, D-D and chloro-picrin.
The manure treatment did
not appreciably aff^ect the severity
of root-knot. By the end of the
second year, root-knot on peach
roots was % to 1/6 as severe in
chloropicrin, D-D or Uramon plots
as on the untreated plots.
The trees on all treated plots
were much larger than those on
untreated plots. Manure had in-creased
growth, but some trees
severely stunted.
All treatments greatly increased
the yield of peaches in comparison
to the untreated plots. The highest
yield was from the chloropicrin-treated
plots.
A severe case of root knot on the roots of a young peach tree.
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1949 ANNUAL REPORT 17
SMALL FRUITS
'Tagged" Phosphate Used on Grapes
Radioactive phosphate placed in
auger holes in the soil of a vine-yard
of James muscadine grapes
w^as found a few weeks later in
the leaves of vines as much as 30
feet away from the holes. The find-ing
leads W. L. Lott, D. P. Sat-chell
and N. S. Hall to conclude
that the active feeding roots of
grapevines must pass under a
neighboring vine and extend as far
as 12 feet on the other side.
In other experiments, the team
of investigators broadcast radio-active
phosphate on the soil sur-face
for a radius of six feet around
Hot Phosphorus Suggcsis Poor Pptterms
CU L-T I VATCD
o o. o
Horizontal lines in the above chart represent trellis rows—the circles
are individual vines. Radioactive phosphorus broadcast in the shaded
area surrounding Vine A was found in pronounced quantities a month
later in adjacent Vines B. Smaller quantities found in Vines C suggest
that cultivating between the trellis rows may sever some of the roots.
New Grapes Solve Weather Problem
Adverse weather during bloom
in 1949 brought out one of the
main advantages of the new per-fect-
flowered varieties of musca-dine
grapes.
C. F. Williams, V. H. Underwood
and G. M. Darrow report that 12
perfect-flowered varieties, furnish-ing
their own pollen, produced
yields that were double those of
the previous year. In contrast, 27
pistillate varieties, depending upon
nearby "male" or perfect-flowered
vines as sources of pollen, yielded
less than half as much as in the
previous year. This would seem
to indicate that the weather inter-fered
with their pollination.
Williams and his co-workers are
attempting to breed perfect-flower-ed
muscadines with yield and qual-ity
to compare with such old pis-tilate
varieties as Scuppernong,
Hunt and Thomas. Since the in-troduction
of the first perfect-flowered
varieties in 1945 they have
been used as pollinators in vine-yards
in place of "male" vines
which produce no fruit. Perfect-flowered
varieties recommended at
present are Burgaw for the dark
muscadines and Wallace for the
white.
Over 7,000 seedlings of the new
breeding cycle are now under test.
Most of these should fruit for the
first time in 1950.
single vines. A month later, leaves
from neighboring vines as well as
those fertilized were tested for
radioactive phosphate.
Vines adjacent to the fertilized
vine and in the same trellis row
(see drawing) showed pronounced
uptake of radioactive phosphorus.
Their concentrations averaged 13.5
per cent as much as those found in
the fertilized vines and ranged as
high as 80 per cent. Only small
concentrations were found in vines
located across the middles from
fertilized vines. Vines located more
than 18 feet away in any direction
failed to show any radioactive
phosphorus.
Muscadine vines are trained on a
two-wire vertical trellis, and the
soil of the middles is disced oc-casionally
to keep down weeds. Evi-dently,
the discing keeps feeding
roots from growing across the mid-dles,
so that the roots extend most-ly
through the soil under the trel-lises.
From these results it appears
that fertilizer will be more effec-tively
used when distributed in a
band about three feet wide under
the trellis than when broadcast
over the whole land area of the
vineyard.
New Raspberry Equals
Laf-ham in Quality
A red raspberry selection de-veloped
by C. F. Williams and
known as 40-7-6 has been released
to propagators for increase and
introduction. It is a second genera-tion
hybrid resulting from a cross
between the Asiatic trailing rasp-berry,
Rubus parvifolius, and
American varieties.
The fruit resembles Latham in
size and shape and is as good or
better in quality. The plant is
vigorous, productive and resistant
to disease. It holds its foliage well
throughout the summer and is
especially adapted to eastern North
Carolina. Yields in row tests have
averaged between five and six pints
per plant.
18 RESEARCH AND FARMING
PARATHION, TEPP CONTROL STRAWBERRY MITES
. Two new insecticides—parathion
and TEPP (tetra ethyl pyrophos-phate)—
have proved effective for
controlling strawberry spider
mites, according to B. B. Fulton.
Local or general outbreaks of the
pest have occurred in the State's
main strawiberry-growing region
every spring since 1946. The mites
were especially damaging in 1949.
Parathion 1 per cent dust was
found effective both at high and
low temperatures. However, Ful-ton
recommends it only for winter
use because of the poisonous resi-due
it may leave if used within a
month of picking time. The ento-mologist
found TEPP .66 per cent
dust to be very effective and recom-
Breeding May Revive
N C Dewberry Industry
New selections of dewberries
now under test brighten the pros-pect
for a revival of North Caro-lina's
once prosperous dewberry in-dustry,
report C. F. Williams and
V. H. Underwood.
At one time North Carolina grew
about 1200 acres of commercial
dewberries for the fresh fruit
market. Because of competition
from other fruits and decreased
yields as a result of diseases, only
about one-tenth of this acreage is
now in production. Yields have
dropped from 150 crates to only
50 crates per acre.
One of the new selections de-veloped
by Williams and Under-wood
was released in 1949 to co-operating
growers for field testing
and plant increase. Known as
38-7-3, this selection came from a
cross between Austin Thornless
and Lucretia. Lucretia is the vari-ety
now in most widespread use.
Although one of the parents is
thornless, 38-7-3 has thorns. It is
more vigorous and disease-resist-ant
than Lucretia, and the foliage
stays green and healthy through
harvest. The fruit is as large as
that of Lucretia, is somewhat
firmer and ripens a few days
earlier.
mends it as well as sulphur dust
for use to within a few days of
picking time.
Fulton reports two possible ad-vantages
of parathion over dinitro
dust for winter use. It has not
caused any foliage burn, and since
it is a general insecticide with
many uses, it is more available
than dinitro. However, the dinitro
dust causes little or no burn in
cold weather and is still considei'ed
more effective for winter use be-cause
it kills many of the eggs as
well as the mites.
The use of a power duster great-ly
improves the effectiveness of
winter dusting, Fulton repoi-ts. The
increased force of the dust blast
gives better coverage of the under-side
of the leaves.
Spider mites were found to be
present in some strawberry fields
in considerable numbers in October,
although no injury to the plants
were noticeable at that time.
Stcaf-ion Introduces New Blueberries
Two new blueberry varieties, the
Murphy and Wolcott, are being
introduced as early, vigorous,
canker-resistant varieties worthy
of comparison with Weymouth,
June and Stanley, report E. B.
Morrow and G. M. Darrow. The
increased vigor and canker resist-ance
come from Crabbe 4, a high-bush
swamp type from eastern
North Carolina which was used as
one of the grandparents.
The season of ripening for Wol-cott
is about the same as for Wey-mouth.
The season for Murphy is
slightly earlier than for June and
Stanley. The berry size of each
variety is about the same as Wey-mouth
but larger than June and
Stanley. The average number of
berries per half-pint cup for three
seasons, 1946-1948, was 113 for
Wolcott, 109 for Murphy, 108 for
Weymouth, 161 for June, and 136
for Stanley. The two new varieties
are fully as productive as Wey-mouth.
The cross from which these vari-eties
were selected was made by the
late Frederick V. Coville of the
United States Department of Agri-culture.
The plants were selected
in 1940 by H. H. Moon and E. B.
Morrow from 900 seedlings grow-ing
on the farm of Harold G.
Huntington of Atkinson, N. C. The
Wolcott has been tested as NC 255
and the Murphy as NC 262.
This red raspberry selectiori has performed well in eastern North Carolina.
1949 ANNUAL REPORT 19
VEGETABLES
Blight Attacks Okra in Mountains
Ascochyta blight of okra may be recognized by the spot
on the flower bud (left), lesions on the stem and pod
(center) and lesions on the leaf (right). The black dots
are spore-bearing bodies of the ascocyta blight fungus.
One reason farmers and home
gardners in the mountain area of
North Carolina often have diffi-culty
growing okra is because of a
fungus disease known as Ascochyta
blight.
Okra plantings in Henderson
County in 1948 and 1949 were se-verely
attacked by this virulent
parasite. The disease was most
severe in late August and Sep-tember
during cool, wet weather
when it reduced production to
practically nothing.
D. E. Ellis and C. E. Lewis re-port
that the disease causes losses
in two ways—first by its effects on
flowers and pods, and second by
weakening the entire plant through
attacks on stems and leaves (see
accompanying photo).
An experiment conducted at the
Mountain Vegetable and Fruit Sta-tion
in 1949 indicated that spray-ing
with Ferbam may offer a pos-sible
means of combating the di-sease.
Ferbam-sprayed plants gave
the highest yields and the lowest
disease ratings of the many fungi-cides
tested.
Pelleted Seed Improves Lettuce Stand, Requires Less Thinning
Lettuce is one North Carolina
truck crop which can be grown
very successfully from pelleted
seed, reports J. M. Jenkins, Jr.
Uniform spacing of plants, reduced
thinning costs, elimination of plant
growing and transplanting costs
and an earlier and more uniform
crop are the principal advantages
of using pelleted lettuce seed.
After making small plot tests in
1948, Jenkins used pelleted seed to
plant an acre of lettuce in 1949. A
precision planter was used to place
single pellets at intervals of two
inches.
At the same time, a comparable
planting was made using non-pel-leted
seed. With the rows 36 inches
apart, it required about 11 pounds
of pelleted seed, or the equivalent
of about three ounces of non-pel-leted
seed per acre. The non-pel-leted
seed was planted at the rate
of two pounds per acre.
In this semi-commercial test, the
plants came up to a near-perfect
stand and grew off more rapidly
than those that had been grown
from non-pelleted seed. The reason
for this seemed to be that the
plants from pelleted seed were not
crowded and had plenty of room
to develop, whereas the other
plants were bunched together.
The plants from pelleted seed
were thinned about a week sooner,
requiring only about half as long
for thinning. Furthermore, the
plants from pelleted seed produced
a more uniform crop and were
harvested a week earlier than the
other planting. Commercial grow-ers
who saw the test were inter-ested
to the extent that several
hundred pounds of coated lettuce
seed were planted in North Caro-lina,
with very good stands result-ing.
Pelleted and non-pelleted seed of
spinach, carrot, raddish, cabbage
and tomato were also compared in
1949. Jenkins found that plants
from pelleted seed emerged from
one to two days later than plants
from non-pelleted seed. But in all
cases, thinning costs were reduced.
In the case of carrots and radishes,
the pelleted seed resulted in high-er
yields of well-sheped roots.
Jenkins concludes that the cost
of producing certain vegetables
such as lettuce and some root crops
may be reduced and more uniform
crops grown from pelleted seed
where this method can be used.
20 RESEARCH AND FARMING
DRENCHES CONTROL LETTUCE MILDEW
Drench applications of Dithane
Z-78, Fermate and Tersan gave
good control of lettuce mildew in
experiments conducted by Frank
A. Haasis and D. E. Ellis. The dis-ease
had caused some serious losses
of plants during previous seasons.
Before the lettuce was seeded,
the plant bed sites were treated
with soil fumigants to control let-tuce
damping-off. The first drench
treatments with the fungicides
were applied on November 28 at
the time of seeding. They were con-tinued
at weekly intervals until
January 9, making a total of seven
applications.
A preliminary estimate of the
amount of mildew infection ap-pearing
in each treatment was
made on January 17. Then on Janu-ary
27, plants were taken at ran-dom
from each plot and examined.
Here is one example of the re-sults:
of the Iceberg lettuce plots
treated with Fermate drench, only
six of 150 plants examined showed
mildew. Ninety of the 150 plants
examined from the control plot
were infected.
No infected plants were found
in either the Iceberg or Romaine
type lettuce plots where Dithane
Z-78 drench was used.
SPRAY OFTEN TO CHECK ANTHRACNOSE
Frequent spraying is necessary
for good control of stem anthrac-nose
disease in lima beans, judging
from the results of tests at the
McCullers Station.
The reason, say D. E. Ellis and
U. L. Diener, is that the fungicides
which are most effective remain
active only a few days. Another
reason for frequent spray is to
protect the new growth against
infection.
Dithane Z-78, Parzate and Phy-gon
were used in the 1949 tests at
McCullers. Each material was ap-plied
at 5-, 10-, or 15-day inter-vals
to determine which schedule
gave best control.
Dithane Z-78 and Parzate ap-plied
at 5-day intervals resulted
in the highest yields—350 and 390
bushels of marketable fruit per
acre, respectively. Applications at
10-day intervals reduced the yields
by almost one-half, and at 15-day
intervals by two-thirds.
On the basis of this and previous
tests, Ellis and Diener recommend
that lima beans be sprayed every
five to seven days with Zineb (Di-thane
Z-78 or Parzate). These ma-terials
should be used at the rate
of 1.5 pounds per 100 gallons of
water. The first application should
be made when the disease is first
noticed or when plants are starting
to blossom.
Stem anthracnose may be recog-nized
by the brick red blotches it
causes on the lima bean pods. It
causes serious losses in commercial
and home garden plantings.
BORON DEFICIENCY FOUND
ON BROCCOLI IN STATE
Boron deficiency symptoms have
been observed on broccoli at all
locations where this crop has been
tested in North Carolina, reports
F. D. Cochran.
The most common symptom in
young plants, says Cochran, is ir-regularly
shaped leaves which, in
some cases, are quite twisted and
curled. The foliage may also ap-pear
to be chlorotic and mottled.
At harvest time the deficiency
shows up in the form of hollow
stems just below the head. In the
more severe cases, the interiors
may be discolored, although neither
condition greatly affects mai-ket-ability.
A more pi'onounced symptom
was found in fall-grown broccoli
crops at Hendersonville. In addi-tion
to the hollow stems, numerous
external lesions appeared on the
stems just below the heads as
shown in the accompanying photo-graph.
In some cases, this was
severe enough to render the crop
useless.
In a 1949 experiment at the
Mills River Vegetable Station, an
application of 20 pounds of borax
per acre added to the fertilizer
gave excellent results. The external
symptoms were corrected, and the
quality of the crop was excellent.
In untreated plots, the deficiency
was so extreme that the crop could
not be marketed.
The experiments are being- con-tinued
at Hendersonville and at the
Faison Vegetable Research Farm.
Pod lesions (left) and leafspots and vein discolorations (right) are the symptoms of stem anthracnose of lima beans.
1949 ANNUAL REPORT 21
The symptoms of tomato late blight are wilted leaves and rotted fruit.
Copper Dust Controls Severe Blight
Late blight of tomato was so se-vere
in Western North Carolina in
1949 that practically no edible to-matoes
(see photo) were produced,
either in commercial plantings or
home gardens, without the use of
protective fungicides. Under these
extreme conditions, D. E. Ellis con-firmed
previous findings that tri-basic
copper sulfate dust does the
best job of controlling late blight
of the various fungicides tested.
Ellis made a total of 17 applica-tions
of each fungicide, using a av-erage
rate of 30 pounds per acre per
application. The first application
was made as soon as the plants
were growing off well after trans-planting.
The plants were dusted
once each week and more frequent-ly
when the dusts were washed off
by rains.
The tribasic dust containing 7
per cent metallic copper gave the
highest average yields and lowest
percentage of rotted fruit. Ellis
cites these results as further evi-dence
that it is possible to control
late blight in western North Caro-lina
even under weather conditions
extremely favorable to disease de-velopment.
Details are given in Extension
Circular 331.
SOUTHLAND, PAN-AMERICAN TOMATOES RESIST WILT
Southland and Pan-America, two
comparatively new wilt-resistant
varieties of tomatoes, produced
yields three and four times greater
than such standard varieties as
Marglobe, Rutgers and Pritchard
in 1949 tests at the McCullers Sta-tion.
D. E. Ellis and U. L. Diener say
the superior wilt-resistance of
Southland and Pan-America ac-counts
for the differences. The soils
at the McCullers location, like many
throughout North Carolina, are
heavily infested with Fusarium wilt.
In the McCullers tests, a high
percentage of plants of the older
varieties showed wilt symptoms by
mid-July. Few if any of the Pan-
America or Southland plants show-ed
Fusarium symptoms, although
a few were affected by bacterial
wilt, a separate disease.
Yields in tons per acre of mar-ketable
tomatoes averaged 13.4 for
Southland; 12.9 for Pan- America;
5.2 for Pritchard; 4.2 for Rutgers
and 2.1 for Marglobe,
Kill Vines To Prevent
Spread of Late Blight
From Vines to Tubers
The spread of potato late blight
from vines to tubers during harvest
can be prevented by spraying or
dusting the vines with a weed killer
or defoliant about seven days be-fore
digging begins, says L. W.
Nielsen.
Late blight has been a serious
problem for Irish potato growers
of eastern North Carolina during
the past few years. In fields where
the vines are badly diseased, the
spores are shaken from the vines
during digging and thus contami-nate
the tubers.
The spores then germinate on the
cool, damp potatoes and cause a
decay which is first noticed some
five to seven days later. Most grow-ers
are unaware of the damage
since late blight tuber rot usually
develops while the potatoes are on
the way to market or after arriv-ing.
Nielsen tried two of the most
popular defoliants (Aero defoliant
dust and Sinox General spray) dur-ing
1949. When applied well ahead
of digging, these chemicals destroy
the vines and the disease as well,
since the late blight fungus does
not live on dead plant tissue.
Another method of killing the
vines which proved successful in
1949 tests was the use of the Roto-beater.
This machine mutilates the
vines and spreads them out where
they dry rapidly. Tuber rot was con-trolled
successfully in this manner
when the vines were mutilated two
or more days before harvest.
Nielsen also found that washing
and drying contaminated potatoes
greatly reduced the number of po-tatoes
that later became diseased.
Spores lodged in cracks, bruises or
deep eyes and not removed by the
washer or destroyed by the heat
of the drier later caused decay.
Washing alone was less effective
than washing plus drying.
Several new potato varieties de-veloped
in recent years have resist-ance
to late blight. Of these, Essex
and Chenango have been found to
produce as high or higher yields
than Irish Cobbler. However, the
supply of seed is still limited.
22 RESEARCH AND FARMING
New Varieties Resist Late Blight
. The planting of late blight-resist- resistant to late blight have also
ant potatoes in eastern North Caro- performed well, Cochran and Pope
lina would save growers an esti- report. They are White Cloud, an
mated $200,000 annually in dusts, early white variety, and LaSalle,
sprays and extra labor, say F. D. a medium season white. Both yield
Cochran and D. T. Pope. well and make a very desirable
With this goal in view, the two appearing potato for the market,
investigators are continuing their COMPARATIVE YIELDS OF
testing of such new resistant va-
^^^^^ POTATO VARIETIES
rieties as Chenango, Essex, Ash-worth
and Kennebec to determine Yield In Bushels Per Acre
their adaptation to North Carolina (US jfl's)
conditions. Camden Jefferson
The comparative yields of these Variety N. C. N. C.
varieties for 1949 at two locations Chenango 487 370
are shown in the following table: Essex 573 451
All of these varieties produce Kennebec 374 461
smoother tubers and exceed the Ashworth 563 —
Irish Cobbler variety in market Irish Cobbler 234 320
appeal. LaSalle 394 288
Two other varieties that are not White Cloud 355 242
Growers Must- Improve Appearance of Potatoes
All states producing Irish pota-toes
in competition with North
Carolina either wash or wash and
dry their product before placing it
on the market.
To help North Carolina growers
meet this competition, F. D Coch-ran
and D. T. Pope intensified their
studies of improved handling and
grading methods during 1949.
In general, they found that wash-ing
and washing plus drying im-proves
the appearance of the prod-uct.
But they also found that wash-ing
reduces the keeping quality of
potatoes. Thus, when hot weather
(above 70 degrees) prevails, Coch-ran
and Pope advise precooling or
refrigeration during shipment to
market. Precooling is especially im-portant
where potatoes are washed
and bagged wet. • -
FERTILIZERS SUPPLY MOST
PHOSPHORUS IN POTATOES
Up to 89 per cent of the phos-phorus
in Irish potato plants at
the ten-inch height may be derived
from the fertilizer, according to
tests conducted by C. D. Welch, N.
S. Hall and W. L. Nelson. The in-vestigators
interpret this finding
as one more reason why potatoes
require such high amounts of fer-tilizer
for good yields.
The tests were conducted on a
Bladen silt loam containing 230
pounds of available P:;0.-. per acre.
The equivalent of 200 pounds of
P^O. per acre was supplied in an
application of one ton of 5-10-5.
Even though the yield of pota-toes
in this test was 210 bags per
acre, only 12 of the 200 pounds of
PlO., applied was removed by the
potato tubers themselves. The re-mainder
of the fertilizer phosphor-us
remained in the soil.
From the results, it is easy to
see why fields test high in phos-phorus
after producing several
crops of potatoes. The potatoes
continue to respond to rather high
rates of phosphorus concentrated
near the plants. Other crops, how-ever,
such as corn or soybeans give
little response to phosphorus ap-plied
under these conditions be-cause
the roots of these crops reach
and can use phosphorus further
out in the soil.
The potatoes on the left were washed and dried—those on the right unwashed. Note the difference in eye-appeal
BHjtr»t-^-
^^^^^Bl^^f ''^Q^&v
1949 ANNUAL REPORT 23
The horned squash bug (right) was the insect found most often on cucurbit
crops. The squash bug (left) was rarely found in this Eastern Carolina survey.
Station Surveys Fall Insects
On the theory that insects may
be helping to spread the internal
cork disease, P. O. Ritcher made a
survey of insects occurring in sweet
potato fields of eastern North Car-olina
during the fall of 1949.
Leaf hoppers of several kinds
and sweet potato flea beetles were
the most abundant insects found.
They were found in large numbers
in most of the fields surveyed.
Aphids, which have been suspected
of transmitting internal cork, were
found in only a few plantings.
The horned squash bug, Anasa
armigera Say, was the most abund-ant
of squash bug species found on
cucurbit crops in North Carolina
by P. 0. Ritcher.
Ritcher reports that he rarely
encountered Anasa tristis De G.,
the squash bug of major importance
in the North. Small numbers of
the southern leaf-footed plant bug
were found on summer squash and
cucumbers.
Unlike Anasa tristis, which pre-fers
squash and pumpkins, the
horned squash bug was found most
often on fall cucumbers. Both spe-cies
were parasitized by the tach-inid
fly. The highest percentage
of parasitism found was at the Mc-
Cullers Station on August 19, when
44.4 per cent were parasitized.
The turnip aphid and the vege-table
weevil—two insects that were
unusually destructive to turnips
during the mild winter of 1949-
50 — were effectively controlled
with insecticides, in tests conducted
by P. 0. Ritcher.
In a series of small scale field
plots at the McCullers Station,
Ritcher tried out 1 per cent rote-none,
3 per cent nicotine and ll^
per cent lindane dusts with the
temperature at 78 degrees. Under
these conditions, the lindane and
nicotine (with lime as a diluent)
each gave excellent control of
aphids. The rotenone dust was only
slightly less effective. However, the
nicotine dust gave no control of
flea beetles, while the other ma-terials
gave excellent control.
In a second series of tests con-ducted
later when temperatures
ranged from 60 to 64 degrees, only
lindane gave excellent control. CS
674 A (a nitroparaffin) and 2 per
cent CS 674 A were included in
these tests.
Later observations of turnip
plots treated for aphid control re-vealed
heavy infestations of vege-table
weevil larvae on certain plots.
No BHC Flavor Found
In Yams After Cotton
Benzene hexachloride, used to
control boll weevils on cotton, was
not found to affect the taste or
odor of sweet potatoes grown on
the same land following cotton.
D. T. Pope, F. D. Cochran and
I. D. Jones undertook this experi-ment
because benzene hexachloride
had been found to produce unde-sirable
flavors and odors when ap-plied
directly to a fruit or truck
crop. It was thought that enough
of the material might remain in
the soil after a cotton crop to pro-duce
a similar effect on sweet po-tatoes.
The tests were conducted in the
Panther Creek Township of Wake
County. The land had been in cot-ton
in 1948 and treated with ben-zene
hexachloride. Porto Rica va-riety
sweet potatoes were planted
on May 25, June 6 and June 16.
All lots were harvested on October
10.
The roots were sampled on the
date of harvest, at the end of the
curing period and during storage.
In cooking tests conducted in the
Food Processing Laboratory at
State College, the samples were
both baked and boiled. In other
tests, slices were taken from sev-eral
individual roots and were boil-ed
and mashed together to make
a composite sample.
Benzene hexachloride was not de-tected
in any of the taste tests,
and no undesirable flavors or odors
were noted.
WILMINGTON LABORATORY
INSTALLS STORAGE ROOMS
Installation of two 12' x 12' cold
storage rooms to be used in bulb
and vegetable storage experiments
highlighted 1949 progress in im-proving
facilities at the Vegetable
Research Laboratory near Wilming-ton.
Temperatures in the rooms can
be held at any point between 34
and 60 degrees F. The rooms will
also be used for seed storage, for
testing the keeping qualities of dif-ferent
varieties of cut flowers and
for studies of certain bulb diseases
which are affected by storage tem-pei'atures.
24 RESEARCH AND FARMING
Vitamins Vary Little
With Planting Dates
Dates of planting and harvest
were found to have little effect
on the vitamin content of sweet
potatoes, in tests conducted by
Harriet P. Tucker, F. D. Cochran,
Walter J. Peterson and M. E. Gard-ner.
In these tests for affect on caro-tene
(pro-vitamin A) and ascorbic
acid (vitamin C) content, two dates
of planting- and three dates of har-vest
were tried. The planting dates
were (1) the earliest frost-free
date, and (2) three to four weeks
later. The harvest dates were (1)
seven to eight weeks before the
usual killing frost, (2) three weeks
before the usual killing frost, and
(3) the latest possible date before
killing frost.
The varieties tested were Porto
Rico and Oklahoma-24, a promising
new variety. Although the differ-ences
in ascorbic acid content of
these two varieties were not
large, Oklahoma-24 was consistent-ly
higher.
Oklahoma-24 consistently con-tained
about three times as much
carotene as Porto Rico. Potatoes of
the newer variety were a uniform
orange throughout, while the Porto
Rico potatoes were streaked with
orange.
Differences between dates of
planting and harvest were not
large, although the second harvest
gave slightly higher values for
both vitamins than did the first
harvest.
Shading Alters Vitamin Content of Greens
Growing turnip greens under
irrigation and shading them with
cheesecloth caused several interest-ing
changes in their vitamin con-tent,
according to Walter J. Pet-erson.
Peterson heads a research
team investigating the effect of
soil and weather on the nutritive
value of vegetables.
Shading in both the irrigated
and non-irrigated plots increased
the carotene (pro-vitamin A) con-tent,
while irrigation alone decreas-ed
the content of this vitamin. In
the irrigated areas the vitamin
values for shade and no shade were
59 and 44, respectively. In the non-irrigated
areas, the values were 61
and 46 milligrams per 100 grams
on the dry weight basis.
The riboflavin (vitamin Bl) was
also increased by shading and de-creased
by irrigation, although the
increase due to shading was not as
large as for carotene. The ascorbic
acid (vitamin C) content on a dry
weight basis did not appear to be
affected appreciably by either shad-ing
or irrigation.
As would be expected, both shad-ing
and irrigation increased the
moisture content. Before final con-clusions
can be di-awn, however,
the experiment will have to be re-peated
over several years to allow
for variations in weather.
SOIL FUMIGANTS CONTROL NEMATODES
In their continuing study of nem-atode
diseases on vegetable crops,
D. E. Ellis and R. G. Owens have
found that soil fumigants are not
equally effective in controlling dif-ferent
species of nematodes and
on different crops.
For instance, greenhouse and
field experiments in 1949 showed
that chloropicrin and dichloropane-dichloropropene
mixture are some-what
more effective against mea-dow
nematodes than is ethylene-debromide.
Yet in 1948 tests for
control of another soil pest—the
root knot nematode—ethylene-di-bromide
appeared best adapted.
Ellis and Owens tested the three
materials in 1949 at rates equiva-lent
to 200, 400 and 600 pounds per
acre. Sweet corn plants were grown
for 90 days in treated soil, and the
relative numbers of meadow nema-todes
present in the roots were then
determined.
The results of a representative
test, given in the accompanying
table, show that at 200 pounds per
acre, all three materials markedly
reduced the nematode population.
At 400 and 600 pounds per acre,
however, the populations were re-duced
to a much lower level by
chloropicrin and dichloropropane-dichloropropene
mixture than by
ethylene dibromide.
Meadow nematodes are present
in most North Carolina soils.
Shallot Shows Promise as New Truck Crop
The shallot, a type of multiplying
onion which, at present, is grown
largely in Louisiana, offers possi-bilities
as a new crop for vegetable
growers in North Carolina.
A smaller Louisiana crop due to
disease, along with the fact that
North Carolina is relatively close
to the large northern markets make
shallots a possibility as a new crop
for North Carolina. A survey of
soil and weather conditions indi-cated
that the crop could be grown
successfully in the southeastern
part of the State.
During the past three years, J,
M. Jenkins, Jr., has tested several
strains of shallots at the Wilming-ton
vegetable Research Laboratory.
These were obtained from Louisi-ana
and were apparently disease-free.
They were increased success-fully
in 1947-48 and showed no in-jury
from cold weather.
Further increases in the bulbs
made it possible to distribute trial
lots to interested growers for com-mercial
tests now under way.
Shallots are shipped as a green
onion during the winter months and
often command good prices on
northern markets.
Effect of soil fumigonts on the number
meadow nematodes in Golden Bantam
sweet corn roots after 90 days.
Av. No.
Material of nemas
Rate per 5 gm.
per acre root sample
Chloropicrin 200
400
600
30.5
1.3
Ethylene dibro- .
mide (10 per cent
by volume)
200
400
600
44.5
36.3
34.5
Dichlorophopane-dichloropropene
.
mixture
200
400
600
33.5
1.3
Check 92.8
1949 ANNUAL REPORT 2^
Poor Coverage Permits
Build-up of Beetles
Failure to apply the insecticide
to the under surfaces of the leaves
was diagnosed by P. 0. Ritcher as
one of the main reasons for failure
to control the Mexican bean beetle
in the mountain area during 1949.
Other factors, says Ritcher, were
(1) excessive rainfall which washed
off the insecticide and (2) applying
the dusts at a time of day when
humidity was high and temperature
low—conditions that reduce the ef-fectiveness
of rotenone.
The bean beetle was unusually
destructive during 1949, especially
in the Mills River area of Hender-son
County where some 7,000 acres
of snap beans were grown. In spite
of repeated applications of insecti-cides,
many early patches were so
heavily damaged that by picking
time the plantings had to be aband-oned
or plowed under. Fall plant-ings
were also infested.
To find out if the failure might
be due to the insecticides used,
Ritcher tried five different dusts:
.75 per cent rotenone, a mixture
containing rotenone, pyrethrins and
piperonyl cyclonene, 5 per cent
methoxychlor, 2 per cent parathion
and 2 per cent CS 645A (a nitro-paraffin).
Counts of the larvae made in late
September showed that all the ma-terials
used gave good control.
TEST PERMITS DETECTION
OF SPOILAGE IN PICKLES
A new chemical test which per-mits
the early detection of spoilage
in brine-stored cucumbers has beeii
developed by, T. A. Bell and J. L.
Etchells and I. D. Jones. Bell and
Etchells are resident cooperators
of the Bureau of Agricultural and
Industrial Chemistry of the U. S.
Department of Agriculture.
The test promises to be of great
value to the nation's pickle pack-ers
by reducing brine-storage
losses. It is used for detecting
a pectin-splitting enzyme associ-ated
with the softening of brined
cucumbers. Such spoilage is an old
problem with the hom'emaker and
commercial packer alike.
Bell, Etchells and Jones expect
the test to become routine. ,
Treat Bulbs to Control Leaf Scorch
Stagonospora leaf scorch disease
of Narcissus can be eradicated or
materially diminished by treating
infected bulbs with hot 0.5 per cent
formalin at the time the bulbs are
dug in the summer, reports Frank
A. Haasis. Leaf scorch is of con-siderable
importance, especially
along the South Atlantic seaboard.
Haasis undertook a study of the
disease in 1949 at the Vegetable
Research Laboratory near Wilming-ton.
He selected bulbs of the Soleil
d'Or variety from fields showing-heavy
leaf scorch infection.
The bulbs were then steeped in
0.5 per cent formalin at 110 to
110.5 degrees for intervals of one-half,
one, two and four hours. Fol-lowing
treatment, the bulbs were
stored in trays until planting on
October 17.
The plants were examined on
December 31 for primary leaf in-fections.
The following percentage
infections were found: 15.75 per
cent for no treatment, 1.25 per
cent for both the half-hour and one-hour
intervals, 1.50 for the two-hour
interval, and no infection
where the bulbs were steeped for
four hours.
Haasis concludes that Narcissus
leaf scorch can be greatly reduced
by steeping infected bulbs in hot
formalin for as little as a half
hour. It can be eradicated^ by pro-longing
the steep for four' hours.
Low Fertility Reduces Bulb Flower Crop
Neglecting the fertilizer needs
of narcissi one year will reduce
the yield or cause the failure of
the cut flower crop the following
year. That's the report of J. M.
Jenkins, Jr., who has been con-ducting
nutrition studies with nar-cissi
at Wilmington since 1947.
Bulbs planted on light, sandy
soils produced few good flowers the
second year and did not bloom at
all the third year if they received
no fertilizer. Bulbs that received
1500 pounds of 4-12-4 fertilizer per
acre in three applications each
growing season continued to pro-duce
good crops of flowers and
large bulbs over a period of three
years. The use of 750 pounds of
4-12-4 per acre supplemented with
a sidedressing of 190 pounds of
nitrate of soda at the time of emer-gence
also resulted in good yields.
Jenkins cites an example to show
that one year's fertilization determ-ines,
to a large extent, the next
year's flower performance. Nar-cissi
receiving a complete fertilizer
application in 1948 produced satis-factory
yields of flowers in 1949
when they were grown without fer-tilizer.
But when these same bulbs
were grown on well-fertilized plots
in 1950 they failed to flower.
The narcissus bulbs on the left received no fertilizer for two years.
Those on the right received 750 pounds of 4-12-4 fertilizer each year.
2(> RESEARCH AND FARMING
FIELD CROPS
PEANUTS
1^ ^-^» i '^i*.-^
Seedlings from X-rayed peanut seed (left and center) compared to a normal seedling of the same age (right).
New Peanuts Show Leaf Spot Resistance
New varieties of peanuts select-ed
from high yielding peanut hy-brids
have outyielded present com-mercial
varieties in 50 to 80 per
cent of the tests conducted through-out
eastern North Carolina during
the last three years.
W. C. Gregory who is in charge
of peanut breeding work reports
that the new strains have a more
satisfactory seed size and have few-er
diseased seeds. They require a
longer growing season to reach
full maturity, but they are not too
late to make a fine crop of peanuts.
One of the most outstanding fea-tures
of these selections is their
much improved resistance to leaf
spot disease. Although leaf spot
can be greatly reduced through
appropriate dusting, it still con-stitutes
a problem worth solving
through plant breeding.
Another effort to develop va-rieties
resistant to leaf spot is
being made through the use of X-rays.
X-rays create both perma-nent
and temporary chemical
changes in plants and animals.
Sometimes these changes are so
great that the individual dies. But
also, the changes are sometimes
just enough to affect the inherited
characters.
Several bushels of peanut seed
were shipped to the Atomic Energy
Laboratories at Oak Ridge, Tennes-see,
where they were exposed in a
one-million volt X-ray machine. Ex-posures
ranged as high as 80,000
roentgens. To give some idea of this
extreme exposure, Gregory points
out that a human receives about
two roentgens of exposure during
an ordinary chest X-ray.
The exposed seeds were then
planted and kept under close ob-servation.
Many that were exposed
to 80,000 roentgens failed to germi-nate
at all. Those exposed to 5,000
or less showed little or no radia-tion
injury. Exposures of 16,000,
18,500, 20,000 and 40,000 roentgens
gave a wide range of damage. The
leaves were usually flecked with
white. Sometimes they were curled
and twisted and sometimes appar-ently
killed outright.
The nature of some of the temp-orary
changes in peanuts caused
by X-rays is shown in the accom-panying
photos. By growing the
seed produced on these plants which
are ill with radiation sickness, it
may be possible to recover per-manently
changed offspring resist-ant
to leaf spot.
FERTILIZER PLACEMENT AFFECTS PEANUT STANDS
Poor stands of peanuts may re-sult
from improper placement of
fertilizers.
In experiments conducted by E.
T. York at the Upper Coastal
Plain Experiment Station, the
stands of Virginia Bunch peanuts
were reduced by more than one-half
when fertilizers were placed
in a band directly under the seed
at planting. In contrast, fertilizers
placed in bands three inches on each
side and two inches below the seed
level had little effect upon germi-nation.
Neither were there notice-able
effects when the fertilizers
was placed in a band four to five
inches below the seed in the row.
This experiment and a similar
one conducted in Chowan County
with the Jumbo Runner variety
also indicate that it is safe and
effective to apply superphosphate
in bands under or on each side of
the seed with muriate of potash
being applied to the top of the row
as the plants begin to emerge.
Unless fertilizers can be placed
on the side or at least four inches
below the seed at planting it would
be desirable to apply the potash
as a top dressing some two to
three weeks after planting.
28 RESEARCH AND FARMING
Fumigants Limit Root Knot on Peanuts
Soil treatments to control root
knot nematodes almost doubled the
green weights of peanut plants over
those grown on untreated soil.
W. E. Cooper undertook these
soil treatment experiments in the
late summer after finding severe
root knot infestations in fields
throughout the peanut belt. He se-lected
for the tests a severely af-fected
field on the Upper Coastal
Plain Station at Rocky Mount.
All the plants including most of
the roots were removed from the
field in late July. On August 1 the
rows were treated either with Dow-fume
D-40 or Dowfume N at 2.7
and 4.7 ml. per linear foot of row.
Without disturbing the soil below
the seed furrow level, Cooper plant-ed
peanut seeds in half of the rows
on August 15 and the other half
on August 24.
There was no apparent injury
to the seedlings in either planting.
Two months after the last plant-ing,
the plants were dug. The roots
of plants from all of the treated
rows were practically free of nema-tode
galls, while those from un-treated
rows were severely affected
as seen in the accompanying photo.
The relative average green weight
per plant, including tops and roots
for the different treatments are
shown in the table.
Cooper reports that the symp-toms
of root knot damage to pea-nuts
are severe stunting and dying,
and roots that are discolored, short,
matted with numerous small galls.
The galls are from one to three
times the diameter of normal roots,
contain from one to four female
root-knot nematodes and usually
have several short stubby rootlets
developing from them.
The relationship of this peanut
root-knot nematode to others re-ported
on peanuts is not known.
But apparently it is not the same
strain which commonly attacks to-bacco
and vegetables. Cooper be-lieves
this nematode may be one
of the main reasons for poor plant
growth—especially where peanuts
follow peanuts in a cropping se-quence.
These peanut roots were taken from
soil that had been treated (left)
and untreated (right) for root knot.
TABLE—The relative average green weight of entire peanut plants from treated
and untreated peanut root-knot nematode infested soil—Upper Coastal Plain
Station, Rocky Mount, N. C, 1949
Treatment
Rate ml.
Per
Lin. foot
Relative weights*
Planted
8/15/49
Planted
8/24/49
Dowfume N 4.7
Dowfume N 2.7
Dowfume D-40 4.7
Dowfume D-40 2.7
Untreated
149.5
187.4
195.8
182.1
100.0
139.3
150.8
175.4
175.4
100.0
* Soil treated August 1, and plants harvested October 24, 1949.
Engineers Seek Ideal Row Width for Growing Peanuts
An alternate row-spacing of 17 and
23 inches permits planting and cul-tivating
with a three-wheel tractor.
What is the ideal row width for
peanuts from all standpoints
—
yield, quality, fertilizer and seed
used as well as ease of machine
planting, cultivating and harvest-ing?
Johnny McCraney and G. W.
Giles hope to have the answer to
this question when they complete
experiments started in 1949.
Earlier tests have shown that
the yields of both peanuts and hay
can be greatly increased by spacing
the rows closer together than the
36 and 42-inch rows which are
standard. One method tried during
1949 was an alternate spacing of
17 and 23 inches, adapted to the
tricycle type medium-sized tractor.
A second method used was a uni-form
spacing of 18 inches, adapted
to a light four-wheel tractor with
the tread adjusted to 36 inches.
In each case, four rows at a time
were planted or cultivated. Special
attachments were devised so that
four planters could be mounted on
each tractor.
The maximum power required
for the planting and for any one
cultivation was five horsepower.
This is not excessive for the trac-tors
used. The rotary hoe was found
excellent for early cultivation. Ten-inch
sweeps were satisfactory for
the later cultivations, provided they
were set flat so that little or no
soil was moved to the drill.
1949 ANNUAL REPORT 29
ENGINEERS COMPARE HARVESTING METHODS
The experimental once-over green peanuts harvester on the stripped off. The model on the right allows only the
left uses belts for holding the plant while the nuts are lower portion of the plant to pass through the picker.
The best mechanized method now
available to farmers for harvesting-peanuts
was tested during the 1949
season by G. W. Giles and Johnny
McCraney who are seeking to im-prove
peanut harvesting. The meth-od
consists of two separate opera-tions:
(1) digging, shaking and
vdndrowing; and (2) picking with a
semi-combine.
In the first operation, a two-row
digger-shaker was found to be more
satisfactory than a one-row ma-chine
since it combines two rows
into one, reduces labor and keeps
the tractor more nearly loaded to
capacity. In the second operation,
a semi-combine picker is pulled
alongside the windrow, and the
peanuts pitched into the machine
by hand fork. If the weather per-mits,
the peanuts may be left in
the windrow to dry partially before
picking.
Giles and McCraney found that
this machine method required 13
man hours per acre as compared
with 34 man hours by the usual
method of harvesting. The picking
time was three hours per acre—too
slow to be considered practical.
One acre per hour is considered a
satisfactory rate for green peanut
harvesting.
A further disadvantage of this
method is the difficulty of saving
the vines from a semi-combine pick-er.
Also, the picker removes the
leaves from the stems and mixes
soil and roots with the vines, thus
making a lower quality hay.
The two investigators also con-tinued
work on three new types of
peanut harvesting machines that
are efficient and also promise to
eliminate some of the disadvantages
mentioned above.
The most pi'omising of the three
machines tried utilized belts or
steel fingers which grip the plant
by the top and convey it over
strippers which remove the nuts.
Following this operation, the roots
are clipped off and returned to the
soil while the tops are conveyed to
a wagon.
The second method consists of
two separate machine operations:
(1) reiTioving the plant tops and
stubble; and (2) collecting and sift-ing
the soil from the nuts. A con-siderable
amount of trash is col-lected
by this method, but it may
be removed satisfactorily.
A machine, utilizing a third prin-cipal
of operation, removes the low-er
portion of the plant for passage
through a conventional type of pea-nut
picker. The upper portion of
the plant is conveyed directly to a
wagon or returned to the soil. This
method materially reduces the
time required for picking.
These experiments will be con-tinued
in an effort to combine the
most desirable features of these
machines into a single, once-over
peanut harvester.
ARTIFICIAL DRYING CAN
GIVE PEANUTS OFF-FLAVOR
Under certain conditions, artifi-cial
drying may damage peanuts
from a quality standpoint as shown
in 1949 tests conducted by the Ex-periment
Station. The most com-mon
types of damage are "off
flavors," excessive splitting and
skinning when the peanuts are
shelled.
The speed of water removal in
itself does not cause the off flavor
if the peanuts have reached the
proper cure befoi'e drying is start-ed.
The off flavor is not a result of
fat breakdown, since free fatty
acids and peroxide indices on bad
tasting peanuts are generally lower
than those for good tasting peanuts.
Peanuts can be dried in a vac-cuum
from a moisture of 40 per
cent to one of 8 per cent within
nine hours. However, such rapid
d r y i n g requires supplementary
heat.
Where the peanuts have reached
the proper cure, rapid drying does
not produce any more damage than
less rapid means of artificial drying.
Peanuts having vines removed
two weeks before harvest showed
lower yields when harvested by
conventional methods. However,
the quality of these peanuts when
artifically dried was higher than
where the vines were clipped at
digging or one week before digging.
30 RESEARCH AND FARMING
C6TT0N
Cotton Hybrids Excell Parent Lines
Cotton hybrids have outyielded
the best inbred lines by 18 per cent
in tests conducted by P. H. Kime
and H. F. Robinson. Ten of the 45
hybrids tested last year at the Mc-
Cullers and Piedmont Stations
showed higher yields than the most
outstanding inbred strains.
The tests showed also that the
fiber quality of a cotton hybrid is
intermediate between that of the
two parents. Hybrid fiber length,
strength and fineness will be neither
better nor poorer than those of its
parents.
The two investigators believe
that the increased yields warrant
developing practical methods for
producing hybrid cotton seed. Chief
problem is cross pollination. While
it's a fairly simple matter to con-trol
the pollination of corn by de-tasselling
the female stalks, cotton
poses a tougher problem. Male and
female segments of the flower are
located so closely together as to
make it difficult to destroy one with-out
injuring the other.
Without controlling the pollina-tion,
only part of the seeds ob-
Hybrids Oi/rmiD Parent Lines
'380 '*os tso <iss faa sos sso
YtELD IN POUNDS OF UNT PER ACRE
tained would be hybrid—the result
of cross-pollination with other
plants. The remainder would result
from self-pollination and thus
would be inbreds.
Obviously, the amount of cross-pollinated
plants in the resulting
mixture would have to be large for
practical use. Beltwide estimates
of the minimum required propor-tion
of hybrids vary from 5 per
cent in some parts of Texas to a
little more than 50 per cent in
Tennessee.
Breeders Increase Fiber Strength of Cotton
New triple hybrid cottons have
been developed by Gladys F. West
with fiber tensile strengths 50 to
60 per cent higher than their up-land
parent, Coker 100 Wilt. Other
parents of the new cottons are a
synthetic hybrid of an Asiatic
species and an American wild spe-cies
native to Arizona.
The best of the new line is some
50 per cent above the average of
the best commercial varieties grown
east of the Mississippi. In fact, its
fibers are 15 to 20 per cent stronger
than the best American Egyptian
long staple cottons.
Miss West repeatedly back-crossed
the new strain to a standard
variety to increase the yields with-out
losing the fiber strength. Now
she is carefully separating the re-sulting
strains. Fiber length ranges
from 1.10 to 1.25 inches.
Fifteen pounds of cotton from
ten selected lines were spun into
carded and combed yarns. Regard-less
of staple length, the strongest
hybrids tested revealed 45 to 60
per cent higher yarn strength than
the average of the best cottons
grown east of the Mississippi.
They showed strength 10 per cent
higher than our best American
Egyptian stocks with a staple
length of 1.5 inches. Miss West
points out that shorter cottons with
superior strength can produce bet-ter
yarns than those spun from our
best inch-and-a-half cottons.
Fiber length and strength are the
two most important properties in
determining yarn strength. It is
possible to predict approximately
the yarn strength of a cotton when
the length and strength of the fib-ers
are known. Strength is the most
reliable test of yarn quality and a
major requirement for many ma-terials.
Also, stronger yarns are de-sired
by the mills because they
bring about "smoother running"
during the spinning process.
The backcrosses will continue.
SODIUM BOOSTS YIELDS OF
COTTON LOW IN POTASH
Greenhouse experiments using
sand cultures have shown that un-der
conditions of potash deficiency,
sodium increased the yield of seed
cotton.
In work conducted by 0. R. Lunt
and W. L. Nelson, cotton grown un-der
slightly deficient potash con-ditions
yielded 14 per cent more
seed cotton when sodium was added.
At a highly deficient level of potash,
sodium increased yields 35 per cent.
These increases in yields were
mostly due to larger bolls.
Sodium had no eff'ect on fiber
length or strength. Plant analyses
show that the cotton plant takes
in considerably more sodium than
any of the common crops such as
corn or tobacco.
1949 ANNUAL REPORT 31
SOURCE OF NITROGEN UNIMPORTANT ON COTTON
The cotton on the left did not receive enough nitrogen while that on
the right did. The yields were 1,475 and 2,563 pounds, respectively.
TREATED SEED ELIMINATES THINNING
By treating cottonseed with rec-ommended
fungicides, farmers may
safely reduce their seeding rate,
judging from experiments con-ducted
by S. G. Lehman. In fact,
treatment with such materials as
Ceresan or Dow 9-B makes seed
germination so dependable that
farmers can eliminate thinning by
using the correct seeding rate.
Lehman tested treated and un-treated
lots of all three types of
seed—fuzzy, reginned and acid de-linted—
at the Upper Coastal Plain
Station in 1949. Seed was planted
by hand and by machine on April
26 and 27.
In one planting, four, six and
eight seeds were dropped in hills
spaced about 11.5 inches, represent-ing
seeding i-ates of approximately
11, 16 and 22 pounds per acre.
Where the treated seed were
counted and dropped by hand, fuzzy
seed treated with Ceresan gave
much better emergence and sur-vival
than either reginned or acid
delinted seed. Where four, six and
eight fuzzy seeds were planted per
hill, the percentages of missing-hills
were 5, 2 and 2, respectively.
The percentages of missing hills
planted with acid delinted seeds at
the same rate were 14, 11 and 10,
respectively. Further thinning of
these stands did not significantly
effect the yields of seed cotton.
In plantings made with a regular
cotton planter, treated fuzzy seed
again resulted in better emergence
than did reginned or delinted seed.
Leguminous cover crops or com-mercial
nitrogen fertilizer serve
equally well to bring maximum cot-ton
yields, say C. D. Welch and
W. L. Nelson. A seven-year check
in the upper Coastal Plain section
shows that the method of supplying
nitrogen is unimportant.
Welch and Nelson found that cot-ton
needs about 60 to 80 pounds
of nitrogen to produce maximum
yields on average soil. Cotton fields
supplied with too little nitrogen
yielded only 1,475 pounds to the
acre. Those given enough nitrogen,
on the other hand, yielded 2,563
pounds of seed cotton per acre.
Part of this yield increase may
come from the formation of more
five-lock bolls. The scientists sepa-rated
four and five-lock bolls to
check the influence of nitrogen on
the number of locks. Not only were
there more five-lock bolls among
the plants given 80 pounds of nitro-gen
as compared to those without
nitrogen, but the bolls were 20 per
cent heavier.
As another phase of the experi-ment,
Welch and Nelson tested non-legume
cover crops. They found it
necessary to apply additional nitro-gen
to the cotton crop following
oats and rye grass which had re-ceived
heavy nitrogen top-dressing.
The two rows on the left were planted with untreated seed. Seed for the
third row was treated 13 days and for the fourth row, 53 days before planting.
iH^i^'-^'' '^^^..
32 RESEARCH AND FARMING
SOYBEANS
Soybean Breeding Stock Increases
photo illustrates process cross-pollinating soybeans.
DUST SOYBEANS TO INCREASE YIELDS
Dusting soybeans with 7 per cent
copper to control diseases increased
the yields an average of 22 per
cent in two tests conducted by S. G.
Lehman.
The experiments were conducted
at the McCullers and Plymouth
Stations, using three varieties
—
Ralsoy, Ogden and Roanoke. Leh-man
used two dusts, one containing
7 per cent copper and 3 per cent
DDT and another containing only
3 per cent DDT. Seven applications
were made at 14-day intervals be-tween
July 11 and September 23.
At McCullers, copper plus DDT
increased the yield of Ralsoy by
5.4, Ogden by 4.6 and Roanoke by
7.3 bushels per acre over plota
dusted with DDT alone. At Plym-outh
the increase was 3.8 bushels
with Ralsoy, 5.9 with Ogden and 8.2
bushels per acre with Roanoke. The
average increase for the three va-rieties
in the two tests was almost
6.0 bushels per acre or 22 per cent
above the yield from plots receiv-ing
only DDT.
In a similar test at Rocky Mount,
the use of copper with DDT in-creased
the average yield of three
varieties by 4.2 bushels or 15 per
cent.
Lehman found that dusting re-duced
leaf spotting diseases from
25 to 50 per cent on Ralsoy which
is very susceptible. He found com-paratively
little bacterial infection
on plots of Ogden and Roanoke, re-gardless
of whether they had been
dusted. He concludes that the in-creases
which resulted from dust-ing
with copper apparently were
not due entirely to control of the
bacterial diseases.
For almost 40 years after soy-beans
were introduced to North
Carolina in 1903, the only improve-ments
came as a result of selecting
from outstanding foreign varieties.
Some varieties developed in this
manner possessed one or more good
characters, but all lacked many of
the characters desired.
In 1941, soybean breeders began
the time-consuming task of trying
to bring together into one variety
the desirable characters possessed
by all existing varieties. This is
possible only through carefully con-trolled
hybridization.
In the first phase of this breed-ing
program, crosses were made so
that one parent was strong in at
least one character while the other
parent was strong in a different
character.
During the second breeding cycle,
crosses were made between strains
that possessed the best combination
of the desired characters. By 1949,
according to H. W. Johnson, the
second cycle was near completion.
Better breeding material is now
available than ever before.
Expansive screening of over 19-
000 F:, progenies from 128 different
crosses has revealed strains with
good combinations of yield, oil con-tent,
and resistance to diseases,
shattering and lodging. None of
these strains has been tested
enough to detei-mine if it merits re-lease
as a new variety.
CORRECT POTASH DEFrCIENCY WITH SIDEDRESSING
Sidedressing with potash at the
first appearance of potash defi-ciency
symptoms significantly in-creased
the yield of soybeans in an
experiment conducted by C. D.
Welch, N. S. Hall, and W. L.
Nelson.
In this test, conducted on a
Bladen silt loam low in potash, the
symptoms developed about one
month after planting. There was
no significant difference in yields
regardless of whether the potash
was placed in bands, broadcast or
applied as sidedressings.
The effects of placement with
potash differed greatly from those
of phosphorus placement. In this
same test, the soybeans made more
growth and seed yields were higher
where the phosphorus was applied
in bands three inches to the side of
the seed instead of being broadcast.
The greater solubility of the pot-ash
fertilizer salts accounts for
this difference, the investigators
explain. Phosphorus fertilizer ma-terials
move very little after they
are put in the soil.
Even though broadcasting or
sidedressing the potash gives as
good results, it is more economical
to apply it in bands at planting
along with the phosphorus.
1949 ANNUAL REPORT 33
FORAGE CROPS
A Grass Roots Study of Soil Moisture
mmMoisrm is sMmii
GMSS
jfe"
LOW POTASH STUNTS ALFALFA ROOTS
Alfalfa stands often "thin out"
rather suddenly on soils low in
potash. At one cutting the stand
and yield may be good, and yet
by the next cutting, many plants
may have been replaced by weeds.
Why ? Not all the reasons are ap-parent
on the surface. But a look
below the surface by W. W. Wood-house,
Jr. and J. H. Horton showed
that the roots held the answer. In
this experiment, low potash cut the
yield of roots more drastically than
it did top growth. Without applica-tion
of potash, the alfalfa roots
grown on an acre weighed 997
pounds, while the top growth
weighed 1,800 pounds. An applica-tion
of 150 pounds of K^ per acre
boosted the root growth to 3,330
pounds and the top growth to 3,272
pounds.
Woodhouse and Horton say this
isn't surprising since potash is
known to be essential in the manu-facture
and transport of foods with-in
the plant. When there is a potash
shortage, the leaves produce less
food and then have "first call" on
food that is produced. Little gets
down to the roots. Consequently,
the roots starve first and may be in
bad shape before the top of the
plant indicates trouble.
This is just another argument for
keeping track of the nutrient level
of your soil by soil tests. Then don't
let the supply get too low.
BREEDING IMPROVEMENTS SPEED BETTER LESPEDEZAS
Improvements in crossing tech-niques
promises to speed up the de-velopment
of better lespedeza
strains from the descendants of
Korean lespedeza.
C. H. Hanson explains that the
trouble until now has been the dif-ficulty
of transferring pollen on the
delicate and showy, rose-colored
flowers. Recent improvements, how-ever,
have solved much of the prob-lem,
and more rapid progress can
be expected in the future.
Attempts to cross a second type
of flower which also grows on the
lespedeza plant have not, as yet,
been successful. These flowers bear
no visible petals and do not open.
They are so small that they may
go unnoticed.
In spite of their small size and
unusual appearance, they are re-sponsible
for much of the lespedeza
seed crop. Hanson believes they
may account for nearly all seed
formed during cool weather.
Agronomists have literally got-ten
down to the grass roots to
answer the question, "Just how
much water does orchard grass
and alfalfa need for maximum
growth?" What they have learned
about water requirements of these
hay and pasture plants should
prove helpful to farmers and agri-cultural
scientists alike in planning
fertilization and irrigation.
D. S. Chamblee found that soil
under alfalfa was dryer through-out
the season than under orchard
grass at all depths. Under both al-falfa
and orchard grass soil dried
to the wilting point more frequently
at the 12-inch depth than at any
other. Chamblee and his associates
conclude that there are many peri-ods
during the growing season when
the water supply is insuflScient for
good growth of even a deep rooted
plant like alfalfa. Roots of both
orchard grass and alfalfa, the
scientists found, extended into the
soil a maximum of 36 inches.
The agronomists used a special
moisture measuring machine—the
Bouyoucos earphone bridge — to
learn how plant roots affect soil
moisture content. Eai'lier studies
in other areas had shown that al-falfa
needs a tremendous amount
of water for maximum growth. Es-timates
placed the needs at from
500 to 1,000 pounds of water to
produce one pound of alfalfa hay.
In setting up this experiment,
Chamblee buried gypsum blocks be-neath
the alfalfa and orchard grass
plants. These soil moisture blocks —connected to the electrical meas-uring
device—were placed at depths
of 3, 6, 12, 24 and 30 inches.
Readings of soil moisture at all
depths were then taken on 55 days
between April 21 and September
30. On 70 per cent of the 55 reading
dates, the soil was near the wilting
percentage at the 12-inch level un-der
alfalfa. However, it reached
this dryness on only 30 per cent
of the days at the 3- and 30-inch
depths. The reason for the differ-ence,
Chamblee says, is that the
upper level of soil

%
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North .Carolina Aerici
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SCHOOL or _„-,.HY _.• AMD FORtSTRl
*GBICUUTURA1- AND „,en.ion
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AOBICU1.TUO*!-
EXPER'"^^^
JlaUtsh
To.
. M North Carolina University of
^,e Governor of NO
^^^ p^^^.,,^,, ,,
The Board ot i r
^ „ „, of Agricul-
The Choncellor ot ino
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.„ ..e ,epor. o, *. A.'-"""'
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•°-To:C':t"----^°'''"- Station tor tne y
Respectfully
Submitted,
J. H. HILTON, Director
RESEARCH AND FARMING
SPRING, 1950
VOLUME VIM
PROGRESS REPORT NO. 4
SEVENTY-SECOND ANNUAL
REPORT
Agricultural Experiment Station,
North Carolina State College of Ag-riculture
and Engineering of the Uni-versity
of North Carolina. Fiscal
Period of July 1, 1948 to June 30,
1949. Progress for December 1, 1948
to Novem'?er 30, 1949; North Caro-lina
Department of Agriculture, Co-operating.
J. H. HILTON
Dean and Director
R. W. CUMMINGS
Associate Director
EDITORIAL
Lane Palmer
PHOTOGRAPHY
Landis Bennett
Ralph Mills
ART WORK
N. S. Youngsteadt
ON THE COVER: Soil augers
ore the tool-in-trade of the soil
surveyor. This auger has just
been used to "pull" a sample
in the Duplin County survey
RESEARCH AND FARMING
FIELD CROPS
PEANUTS
1^ ^-^» i '^i*.-^
Seedlings from X-rayed peanut seed (left and center) compared to a normal seedling of the same age (right).
New Peanuts Show Leaf Spot Resistance
New varieties of peanuts select-ed
from high yielding peanut hy-brids
have outyielded present com-mercial
varieties in 50 to 80 per
cent of the tests conducted through-out
eastern North Carolina during
the last three years.
W. C. Gregory who is in charge
of peanut breeding work reports
that the new strains have a more
satisfactory seed size and have few-er
diseased seeds. They require a
longer growing season to reach
full maturity, but they are not too
late to make a fine crop of peanuts.
One of the most outstanding fea-tures
of these selections is their
much improved resistance to leaf
spot disease. Although leaf spot
can be greatly reduced through
appropriate dusting, it still con-stitutes
a problem worth solving
through plant breeding.
Another effort to develop va-rieties
resistant to leaf spot is
being made through the use of X-rays.
X-rays create both perma-nent
and temporary chemical
changes in plants and animals.
Sometimes these changes are so
great that the individual dies. But
also, the changes are sometimes
just enough to affect the inherited
characters.
Several bushels of peanut seed
were shipped to the Atomic Energy
Laboratories at Oak Ridge, Tennes-see,
where they were exposed in a
one-million volt X-ray machine. Ex-posures
ranged as high as 80,000
roentgens. To give some idea of this
extreme exposure, Gregory points
out that a human receives about
two roentgens of exposure during
an ordinary chest X-ray.
The exposed seeds were then
planted and kept under close ob-servation.
Many that were exposed
to 80,000 roentgens failed to germi-nate
at all. Those exposed to 5,000
or less showed little or no radia-tion
injury. Exposures of 16,000,
18,500, 20,000 and 40,000 roentgens
gave a wide range of damage. The
leaves were usually flecked with
white. Sometimes they were curled
and twisted and sometimes appar-ently
killed outright.
The nature of some of the temp-orary
changes in peanuts caused
by X-rays is shown in the accom-panying
photos. By growing the
seed produced on these plants which
are ill with radiation sickness, it
may be possible to recover per-manently
changed offspring resist-ant
to leaf spot.
FERTILIZER PLACEMENT AFFECTS PEANUT STANDS
Poor stands of peanuts may re-sult
from improper placement of
fertilizers.
In experiments conducted by E.
T. York at the Upper Coastal
Plain Experiment Station, the
stands of Virginia Bunch peanuts
were reduced by more than one-half
when fertilizers were placed
in a band directly under the seed
at planting. In contrast, fertilizers
placed in bands three inches on each
side and two inches below the seed
level had little effect upon germi-nation.
Neither were there notice-able
effects when the fertilizers
was placed in a band four to five
inches below the seed in the row.
This experiment and a similar
one conducted in Chowan County
with the Jumbo Runner variety
also indicate that it is safe and
effective to apply superphosphate
in bands under or on each side of
the seed with muriate of potash
being applied to the top of the row
as the plants begin to emerge.
Unless fertilizers can be placed
on the side or at least four inches
below the seed at planting it would
be desirable to apply the potash
as a top dressing some two to
three weeks after planting.
28 RESEARCH AND FARMING
Fumigants Limit Root Knot on Peanuts
Soil treatments to control root
knot nematodes almost doubled the
green weights of peanut plants over
those grown on untreated soil.
W. E. Cooper undertook these
soil treatment experiments in the
late summer after finding severe
root knot infestations in fields
throughout the peanut belt. He se-lected
for the tests a severely af-fected
field on the Upper Coastal
Plain Station at Rocky Mount.
All the plants including most of
the roots were removed from the
field in late July. On August 1 the
rows were treated either with Dow-fume
D-40 or Dowfume N at 2.7
and 4.7 ml. per linear foot of row.
Without disturbing the soil below
the seed furrow level, Cooper plant-ed
peanut seeds in half of the rows
on August 15 and the other half
on August 24.
There was no apparent injury
to the seedlings in either planting.
Two months after the last plant-ing,
the plants were dug. The roots
of plants from all of the treated
rows were practically free of nema-tode
galls, while those from un-treated
rows were severely affected
as seen in the accompanying photo.
The relative average green weight
per plant, including tops and roots
for the different treatments are
shown in the table.
Cooper reports that the symp-toms
of root knot damage to pea-nuts
are severe stunting and dying,
and roots that are discolored, short,
matted with numerous small galls.
The galls are from one to three
times the diameter of normal roots,
contain from one to four female
root-knot nematodes and usually
have several short stubby rootlets
developing from them.
The relationship of this peanut
root-knot nematode to others re-ported
on peanuts is not known.
But apparently it is not the same
strain which commonly attacks to-bacco
and vegetables. Cooper be-lieves
this nematode may be one
of the main reasons for poor plant
growth—especially where peanuts
follow peanuts in a cropping se-quence.
These peanut roots were taken from
soil that had been treated (left)
and untreated (right) for root knot.
TABLE—The relative average green weight of entire peanut plants from treated
and untreated peanut root-knot nematode infested soil—Upper Coastal Plain
Station, Rocky Mount, N. C, 1949
Treatment
Rate ml.
Per
Lin. foot
Relative weights*
Planted
8/15/49
Planted
8/24/49
Dowfume N 4.7
Dowfume N 2.7
Dowfume D-40 4.7
Dowfume D-40 2.7
Untreated
149.5
187.4
195.8
182.1
100.0
139.3
150.8
175.4
175.4
100.0
* Soil treated August 1, and plants harvested October 24, 1949.
Engineers Seek Ideal Row Width for Growing Peanuts
An alternate row-spacing of 17 and
23 inches permits planting and cul-tivating
with a three-wheel tractor.
What is the ideal row width for
peanuts from all standpoints
—
yield, quality, fertilizer and seed
used as well as ease of machine
planting, cultivating and harvest-ing?
Johnny McCraney and G. W.
Giles hope to have the answer to
this question when they complete
experiments started in 1949.
Earlier tests have shown that
the yields of both peanuts and hay
can be greatly increased by spacing
the rows closer together than the
36 and 42-inch rows which are
standard. One method tried during
1949 was an alternate spacing of
17 and 23 inches, adapted to the
tricycle type medium-sized tractor.
A second method used was a uni-form
spacing of 18 inches, adapted
to a light four-wheel tractor with
the tread adjusted to 36 inches.
In each case, four rows at a time
were planted or cultivated. Special
attachments were devised so that
four planters could be mounted on
each tractor.
The maximum power required
for the planting and for any one
cultivation was five horsepower.
This is not excessive for the trac-tors
used. The rotary hoe was found
excellent for early cultivation. Ten-inch
sweeps were satisfactory for
the later cultivations, provided they
were set flat so that little or no
soil was moved to the drill.
1949 ANNUAL REPORT 29
ENGINEERS COMPARE HARVESTING METHODS
The experimental once-over green peanuts harvester on the stripped off. The model on the right allows only the
left uses belts for holding the plant while the nuts are lower portion of the plant to pass through the picker.
The best mechanized method now
available to farmers for harvesting-peanuts
was tested during the 1949
season by G. W. Giles and Johnny
McCraney who are seeking to im-prove
peanut harvesting. The meth-od
consists of two separate opera-tions:
(1) digging, shaking and
vdndrowing; and (2) picking with a
semi-combine.
In the first operation, a two-row
digger-shaker was found to be more
satisfactory than a one-row ma-chine
since it combines two rows
into one, reduces labor and keeps
the tractor more nearly loaded to
capacity. In the second operation,
a semi-combine picker is pulled
alongside the windrow, and the
peanuts pitched into the machine
by hand fork. If the weather per-mits,
the peanuts may be left in
the windrow to dry partially before
picking.
Giles and McCraney found that
this machine method required 13
man hours per acre as compared
with 34 man hours by the usual
method of harvesting. The picking
time was three hours per acre—too
slow to be considered practical.
One acre per hour is considered a
satisfactory rate for green peanut
harvesting.
A further disadvantage of this
method is the difficulty of saving
the vines from a semi-combine pick-er.
Also, the picker removes the
leaves from the stems and mixes
soil and roots with the vines, thus
making a lower quality hay.
The two investigators also con-tinued
work on three new types of
peanut harvesting machines that
are efficient and also promise to
eliminate some of the disadvantages
mentioned above.
The most pi'omising of the three
machines tried utilized belts or
steel fingers which grip the plant
by the top and convey it over
strippers which remove the nuts.
Following this operation, the roots
are clipped off and returned to the
soil while the tops are conveyed to
a wagon.
The second method consists of
two separate machine operations:
(1) reiTioving the plant tops and
stubble; and (2) collecting and sift-ing
the soil from the nuts. A con-siderable
amount of trash is col-lected
by this method, but it may
be removed satisfactorily.
A machine, utilizing a third prin-cipal
of operation, removes the low-er
portion of the plant for passage
through a conventional type of pea-nut
picker. The upper portion of
the plant is conveyed directly to a
wagon or returned to the soil. This
method materially reduces the
time required for picking.
These experiments will be con-tinued
in an effort to combine the
most desirable features of these
machines into a single, once-over
peanut harvester.
ARTIFICIAL DRYING CAN
GIVE PEANUTS OFF-FLAVOR
Under certain conditions, artifi-cial
drying may damage peanuts
from a quality standpoint as shown
in 1949 tests conducted by the Ex-periment
Station. The most com-mon
types of damage are "off
flavors," excessive splitting and
skinning when the peanuts are
shelled.
The speed of water removal in
itself does not cause the off flavor
if the peanuts have reached the
proper cure befoi'e drying is start-ed.
The off flavor is not a result of
fat breakdown, since free fatty
acids and peroxide indices on bad
tasting peanuts are generally lower
than those for good tasting peanuts.
Peanuts can be dried in a vac-cuum
from a moisture of 40 per
cent to one of 8 per cent within
nine hours. However, such rapid
d r y i n g requires supplementary
heat.
Where the peanuts have reached
the proper cure, rapid drying does
not produce any more damage than
less rapid means of artificial drying.
Peanuts having vines removed
two weeks before harvest showed
lower yields when harvested by
conventional methods. However,
the quality of these peanuts when
artifically dried was higher than
where the vines were clipped at
digging or one week before digging.
30 RESEARCH AND FARMING
C6TT0N
Cotton Hybrids Excell Parent Lines
Cotton hybrids have outyielded
the best inbred lines by 18 per cent
in tests conducted by P. H. Kime
and H. F. Robinson. Ten of the 45
hybrids tested last year at the Mc-
Cullers and Piedmont Stations
showed higher yields than the most
outstanding inbred strains.
The tests showed also that the
fiber quality of a cotton hybrid is
intermediate between that of the
two parents. Hybrid fiber length,
strength and fineness will be neither
better nor poorer than those of its
parents.
The two investigators believe
that the increased yields warrant
developing practical methods for
producing hybrid cotton seed. Chief
problem is cross pollination. While
it's a fairly simple matter to con-trol
the pollination of corn by de-tasselling
the female stalks, cotton
poses a tougher problem. Male and
female segments of the flower are
located so closely together as to
make it difficult to destroy one with-out
injuring the other.
Without controlling the pollina-tion,
only part of the seeds ob-
Hybrids Oi/rmiD Parent Lines
'380 '*os tso